Today, while preparing the places2b meeting for next week, we did a little research about the situation in Languedoc-Roussillon.
It seems, we hit the mark with our project aims because we want to initialize a discussion with local people and local stakeholders about the development of sustainable structures for tourism in our region. There is a regional development program which listed important points such as raising the expenditures for tourism (today only 2 % of the region’s overall budget is spent for tourism), the improvement and modernization of accommodations and restaurants, make the region to an all-season-holiday target and invest in education. All by including local companies, decision makers, inhabitants.
Sounds good and it’s a long-term development.
We start smaller 😉
We try to get local people, stakeholders, decision makers involved in a participatory process by establishing round tables where we discuss local issues on tourism. A few weeks ago, we invited the mayor and local decision makers to welcome the project group and discuss the issues of the project. Until today, we have not gotten any reliable answer from our local government.
Maybe we will be more successful by involving a group of local people in writing an online travel guide for the region. We have our first presentation this week.