Preservation and valorisation of the natural and cultural heritage and development of sustainable tourism in the cross-boarder carst landscape
Principal Investigator at ZRC SAZU
Mateja Breg Valjavec, PhD-
Original Title
Preservation and valorisation of the natural and cultural heritage and development of sustainable tourism in the cross-boarder carst landscape
Project Team
Mateja Breg Valjavec, PhD, Mateja Ferk, PhD, Blaž Komac, PhD, Katarina Polajnar Horvat, PhD, Aleš Smrekar, PhD, Jure Tičar, PhD, Maja Topole, PhD, Manca Volk Bahun, PhD, Matija Zorn, PhD-
Duration
1 September 2017–29 February 2020 -
Lead Partner
-
Financial Source
Interreg Slovenija - Hrvaška
Evropski sklad za regionalni razvoj
Partners
Muze - advocacy and management in culture and tourism, Municipality of Punat, Museum of Natural History Rijeka, Good place travel lab, The Škocijan Caves, Communal housing company Sežana
The project’s main goal is to preserve the natural and cultural heritage of the karst landscape. It stems from mthree common challenges in the program area. (1) Preservation and valorisation of the natural and cultural heritage, which will be achieved with the new KRASn'KRŠ sustainable destination, where we will follow the principles of sustainable tourism to promote four typical karst landscape types and their heritage: lowland, contact, alpine, and maritime karst. (2) Adjusting the tourist offer to the needs of modern visitors will be tied to four existing protected subjects of karst heritage in Sežana, the Škocjan Caves, Brod na Kolpi, and Punat, which will be upgraded into heritage interpretation centres and heritage interpretation poligone. The destination’s tourist offer will be established with 15 cross-border sustainable tourist products, which have been designed for different visitor groups in accordance with the principles of sustainable tourism. (3) Connecting the small and fragmented tourist offer to also direct visitors to the visit-worthy hinterland will be achieved by directing visitors to less known karts hot spots of rural heritage in the hinterland. The key result of the KRASn'KRŠ project will be an increased recognisability of karst heritage, which will be reflected in a greater number of visitors in the four heritage areas and their wider hinterlands. The local inhabitants will also benefit from this, as new opportunities will be created for jobs in tourism and stakeholders in tourism., Innovation is the integrated approach of preserving and promoting heritage based on an integrated bottom-up approach combined with a three-level heritage interpretation approach. The latter consists of a network of four interpretation centres; each centre has its own in-situ interpretation poligon in its hinterland along with a network of less known and not yet valorised hot spots of rural karst heritage.