Western Balkan Adventure and Discovery Tour
This project connects five countries of the former Yugoslavia (Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia) and shapes it around one of the biggest attractions for youth tourism in Europe - EXIT music festival.
Quick overview:
Project title: Western Balkan Adventure and Discovery Tour - WBAADT
Donors: Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP)
Project value: 123 215.97 EUR
Implementation period: April 2013 - April 2014.
Partners: EXIT TIM lead partner, National Tourism Organisation of Montenegro, MONDO DOO, Association for Culture and Art TAKSIRAT, SUPRA SKUPINA, Ostfest Limited
WBAADT
Overall objective of this project is to contribute to a better positioning of the Western Balkans on European and world’s tourism markets through the creation of a transnational sustainable tourism product based on youth tourism as the main theme. Its special objective is to strengthen the tourism industry of the ex-Yugoslavia countries which were devastated during the Balkan wars in the 90s. This will support overall European tourism competitiveness on the global tourism market, as the Western Balkans is the only European region which is relatively undiscovered by world’s travellers (with the exception of Croatia and Montenegro).
About the action: This project will connect five countries of the former Yugoslavia (Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia) and it will be shaped around one of the biggest attractions for youth tourism in Europe - EXIT music festival. The project will contribute to the visibility of the transnational tour through the creation of a specialized Internet portal, Printed Brochure and a TV documentary (5 episodes) about the most important youth destinations in the region. In addition, the project aims to fund events in each of these destinations. This transnational tour will be used as a model for establishing similar regular tours throughout the season / year. In addition, the project will support the creation of the cluster of the most important youth tourism stakeholders in the region.
Main objectives:
In order to achieve the above mentioned objective, the project consortium will:
a) Improve the visibility of the transnational route as well as marketing and promotional capacities of tourism stakeholders in the targeted region.
b) Increase tourist flows and contribute to the growth and employment in the regional tourism sector - through exchange of tourism between existing destinations (consortium partners) as well as by attracting new tourists from all around the world tourist flows will be increased and new jobs in the sector stimulated.
c) Encourage initiatives for public-private partnerships for the development of the tourism sector in the targeted countries and higher involvement of SMEs and local authorities.
d) Exploit and further enhance unused potentials for youth tourism in the Western Balkans. This project is using the worldwide recognised brand of EXIT music festival.
Added value: e) Promote cooperation and stability in the region - the tourism development (especially youth tourism) has been identified as a tool for reaching long-term peace and stability in the former conflict regions (peace-through-tourism).
