P1 Competitive economy
1.3. More exports by the Central Baltic companies to new markets
Central Baltic
01.07.2016 - 31.03.2020
€1 413 735
€1 141 858
In the Central Baltic region, tourist visits from neighbouring countries have declined in some areas. To face this challenge, clusters with skills, knowledge and the understanding required to enter new markets are needed and working with the Japanese market will create more opportunities to increase tourism in the region. Currently, potential exists in rural tourism for the development of clusters, products and services especially in terms of product quality and demand. This can be extended to the Japanese market in the tourism sector since Japanese tourists have expressed interest in visiting rural areas to experience the wide range of natural and cultural heritage products to be found in our countryside.
The aim of the project is shaping a rural tourism high capacity meta-cluster to access the Japanese market, enable its structure and operations, and present a significant rural tourism product for Japanese travellers. The idea is to build Japanese market expertise in order to create focused marketing and products suited to the interests and expectations of Japanese tourists to attract them in greater numbers to visit the Central Baltic region.
Eesti Maaülikool
Country: EE
Partner budget: 307.029 EUR
Amount of ERDF funding: 260.975 EUR ERDF
MTÜ Eesti Maaturism
Country: EE
Partner budget: 128.131 EUR
Amount of ERDF funding: 108.912 EUR ERDF
Latvijas Lauksaimniecības Universitāte
Country: LV
Partner budget: 123.482 EUR
Amount of ERDF funding: 104.960 EUR ERDF
Latvijas lauku tūrisma asociācija “Lauku ceļotājs”
Country: LV
Partner budget: 256.928 EUR
Amount of ERDF funding: 218.389 EUR ERDF
Laurea-ammattikorkealoulu Oy
Country: FI
Partner budget: 241.507 EUR
Amount of ERDF funding: 181.130 EUR ERDF
Länsi-Uudenmaan Lumo matkailu Oy
Country: FI
Partner budget: 72.386 EUR
Amount of ERDF funding: 54.290 EUR ERDF
Helsingin Yliopiston Ruralia-instituutti
Country: FI
Partner budget: 151.950 EUR
Amount of ERDF funding: 113.963 EUR ERDF
Lohjan Kaupunki
Country: FI
Partner budget: 132.321 EUR
Amount of ERDF funding: 99.241 EUR ERDF
Latvijas Tūrisma aģentu un opetatoru asociācija
Country: LV
Eesti Turismifirmade Liit (ETFL)
Country: EE
Society Zemgale tourism association
Country: LV
Achieved results
CAITO attracted Japanese tourists to the Central Baltic region
The project targeted the increase in Japanese tourists visits to Central Baltic region by joint efforts of Estonian, Finnish and Latvian rural tourism clusters.
The project was led by Estonian University of Life Sciences and included relevant partner organisations working with rural tourism from Estonia, Latvia and Finland.
The project implemented wide range of activities relevant for attracting Japanese tourists to the Central Baltic region. Those activities included awareness raising and product development among tourist service providers, trainings, hosting media and tour operators visits, creating press articles, participations in JATA travel market, market analysis, new marketing materials, the landing page, itineraries and packages for individual tourists.
During the prorject 252 unique rural tourism secto companies actively participated in project activities. The participating companies represented fields as accommodation, restaurants, catering, leisure, culture and others.
The project emphasised the high value added related to the product development (packaging the rural tourism services into joint journeys and offers), following the Japanese tourists logic to visit more than 1 Central Baltic country while visiting the region and joining forces for active new market entry activities (joint FAM trips, participations in fairs, marketing materials,…).
The project resulted continuing cooperation by rural tourism organisations after the end of project, the use of landing page - https://balticsea.countryholidays.info/ and has led to new cross-border cooperation projects.