Participative creation of tourist routes based on the stories of inhabitants in their native language. From September 2019 to August 2022.
Programme : Erasmus+ Education and Training
Year : 2019
Duration : 30 months
Budget : 285K€
Leader : LABA
Partners :
- France : Les Balades Alternatives
- Bulgaria : Intercultura Consult, Université de Plovdiv “Paisii Hilendarski”
- Italy : Consorzio Materahub Industrie Culturali e Creative
- Ireland : Momentum Marketing Services Ltd, Roscommon Leader Partnership
- Romania : Universitatea Nationala de Arta Teatrala si Cinematografica Ion Luca Caragiale
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Results: This European Stories Digital Toolbox is a practical guide to 23 of the best digital tools currently available to promote heritage, facilitate digital storytelling and create virtual tourism tours. Each tool has been carefully selected on the basis of an extensive needs analysis survey completed by community tourism and heritage promotors across Europe in 2020.
European Stories is a European project aimed at developing the skills of adults working in the field of participatory, sustainable and inclusive tourism. The project is part of a context of a multiplication of initiatives integrating the inhabitants into the tourist offers. Noting the movements of greeters, many social enterprises offer tourist tours involving inhabitants in precarious situations (job seekers, foreigners), like the Berlin museums which offer guided tours in foreign languages led by refugees.
The partners are all involved in the processes of promoting the mother tongues of people whose national language is not their mother tongue. They have all already conducted valuation experiments in
– Romani in Bulgaria
– Turkish, Romani, Arabic, Portuguese and Italian in France
– from Irish Gaelic to Irish.
In a context of rising nationalism, xenophobia and glottophobia, the partners see participatory tourism as an opportunity to promote mother tongues and European cultural diversity. The partners are adult education and training institutes, advisory bodies, universities, specialists in tourism and the creative industries.
The European Stories project will therefore work to develop the skills of trainers working with residents (artists, mediators, trainers…) by supporting their ability to :
– Enhance the languages and stories of the inhabitants in the tourist offers
– Train residents to work at the heart of tourist offers (guided tours, digital, culinary, artistic tours…)
– Develop the inclusion of foreigners and their employability through these initiatives
– Involve residents in the economic models linked to these tourist offers (NGOs, cooperatives, social enterprises)
The European Stories project will develop several types of activities for the development of adult skills and qualifications:
– 3 learning activities
– Creation of a certificate for the target audiences of the project (adult trainers working to include the inhabitants in the tourist offers of a territory)
– 1 Digital platform of technological and economic resources related to the challenges of sustainable and participatory tourism
– 4 transnational dissemination events (Bulgaria, Italy, Ireland and France)
These activities will bring together the following participants :
– Recognised European experts in adult education (mediators, writers, artists, trainers, social
inclusion specialists, etc.) (50)
– Managers of public and private companies active in the field of sustainable tourism (50)
– Specialists in the promotion of mother tongues in social and economic inclusion processes (20)
– Specialists in digital tools for the enhancement of tangible and intangible heritage (70)
– Specialists in alternative economic models (10 lawyers and economists)
– Heads of local authorities responsible for the enhancement of their tangible and intangible heritage
The relevance of the European Stories project is based on a formal and non-formal education methodology that favours:
– The development of content based on the needs of the final beneficiaries of the project
(inhabitants), and concrete experiments on the territories
– Cross-fertilization of expertise: tourism and entrepreneurship
– The contribution of new technologies to the enhancement of heritage and accessible to residents
– The creation of entrepreneurial and economic models that integrate the interests of the inhabitants
The results and impacts of the European Stories project will act at all levels, from local to international, but will focus on the qualifications and skills development of the final beneficiaries, often employed on a part-time basis and on precarious or voluntary contracts. The European Stories project offers tools for :
– Consolidation of people working in the sustainable tourism sector in order to effectively promote the employability of participants,
– Enhancing the value of the languages and history of the inhabitants, and enhancing the diversity of this European heritage
– Use of digital tools by residents
– Participation of these inhabitants in the economic models of the companies offering the tourist offers in which they work.
These impacts will be disseminated in the networks of tourism (private and public), social and solidarity development, the inclusion of foreigners and creative industries, and local authorities. Our territories are living more and more on an event-driven rhythm, the flow of people is becoming more complex. The answer proposed by European Stories aims to act on the enhancement of the cultural diversity of our territories through the empowerment of our populations.