Funded Projects 2014-2020
Project ETRAC
| Project Acronym | ETRAC |
|---|---|
| Project Title | Ethical Tourism Recovery in Arctic Communities |
| Project subsite |
Summary
COVID-19 is having a profound effect on the tourism sector in the Cool North and as the industry starts to move into a resilient, post-pandemic recovery there is an opportunity to look at more sustainable or responsible tourist behaviour and address sustainability challenges in peripheral and Arctic areas that have been intensified by the pandemic.
The aim of ETRAC is to enable short-term business recovery while exploring options for a more culturally and locally sensitive tourism future.
The partners will work with local SMEs, communities, Destination Management Organisations (DMO) and other stakeholders to enable them to diversify the business, work collaboratively, acquire new skills or create new digital tourism streams. In doing so, the project aims to address challenges common across the project area, such as demographic issues related to the sparse population and peripherality and under-representation of Indigenous and other cultures in Arctic areas.
The approach is to draw upon the collective experience of the lead partners from four previous or current NPA projects - ARCTISEN, W-POWER, SHAPE and SAINT - to share new approaches with an expanded network of end-users through a dynamic innovation platform. In order to harness, enhance and synergise the lessons and outputs of the four participating projects ETRAC will have the following outputs:
- A report and recovery strategies synthesising knowledge, including updated data from the previous projects & new data gathering regarding SMEs’ experiences since the onset of the COVID pandemic.
- A platform for open innovation and training, adapted from the SHAPE e-service. This will include a) training/coaching modules, drawn from the 4 projects & open-access resources developed by partners, b) online benchmarking, peer-to-peer mentoring & other business support tools, and c) good practice/documented experiences.
- A series of digital end-user events, expanding the network to connect end-users and disseminating lessons and impacts from all 4 projects.
Objectives
Empowering tourism entrepreneurs and SMEs in post-COVID recovery
To use the lessons learned from the four participating projects to enable tourism businesses to recover from the pandemic and achieve greater resilience for themselves and their communities
Promoting sustainable, sensitive tourism recovery
To use networking, collaboration & transnational transfer of good practice, training and expertise in the development of
more responsible tourism products and experiences sensitive to local and cultural needs, taking into account the marginalised groups.
Capacity building
To adapt the SHAPE web-based ‘e-service’ as a platform to support tourism SME development, by hosting online training
materials, good practice experiences and business support tools and enabling peer-to-peer mentoring.
Lead Partner
- Karelia University of Applied Sciences Ltd.
Finland
Helena Puhakka-Tarvainen
phone +358504302418
e-mail: helena.puhakka-tarvainen@karelia.fi
Partners
- University of Lapland
Finland - University of the Highlands and Islands
Scotland
Project Info
| Theme Tourism, recreation, cultural heritage, languages |
| Priority 2 Entrepreneurship |
| Objective 2.1 Improved support systems for SMEs |
| Project duration 01-07-21 to 30-06-22 |
| Total budget 153 247 EUR |
| NPA co-financing 99 610 EUR |
| Target groups sectoral agency interest groups including NGOs higher education and research education/training centre and school enterprise, including SME business support organisation local public authority regional public authority national public authority |