Two place branding workshops were organized in the pilot locations under the project “People-Powered Tourism: empowerment of local communities through co-designing experience based transformative travel to enhance visitor economy”, funded by the Interreg Danube Region Programme (DRP) 2021–2027, in the city of Vratsa.
On 14 and 15 March, respectively in the village of Zgorigrad and the Bistrets neighborhood of Vratsa, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry Vratsa brought together representatives of the local communities to implement the events within the framework of the project.
The partnership consists of 14 organizations from 10 countries in Central and Southeast Europe, led by the Municipality of Szeged (Hungary). The project addresses contemporary challenges in tourism by proposing a “visitor economy” model, which places visitors and local communities at the center of development. This approach positions people as the main drivers of sustainable development, emphasizing the importance of human relationships, local identities, and personalized experiences that generate added value for the local economy.
The main objective of the workshops was to validate the process of mapping local resources with a broader group from the local community, in order to further develop the information collected so far and to assess the mapping process and the initial concepts for tourism products.
During the meetings, the progress achieved so far was presented, as well as the pilot concepts for the development of tourism products and services in the region. Throughout the sessions, participants had the opportunity to provide feedback on the collected information, thereby confirming its accuracy and relevance. In addition, they evaluated the pilot activities and offered recommendations on how these could be further improved, thus contributing inputs for the planning, management and implementation of the visitor economy.
Participants expressed high appreciation for the proposed ideas for developing tourism services and demonstrated strong optimism regarding the potential of both locations to become attractive tourism destinations. The opinions and comments collected during the workshops will be used in the further development of the project’s pilot activities.
