prijava
SARAJEVO, June 11 (FENA) - The Regional Cooperation Council (RCC), under its Tourism Development and Promotion EU funded project, launched yesterday the second in a row grant call for projects developing the tourism offer in the Western Balkans. While the grants scheme totals EUR 1.62 million, this second tranche is making available EUR 750,000 for the implementation of some 14 pilot projects worth up to EUR 54,000.
The goal of the RCCs grant scheme is to develop and globally promote joint regional cultural and adventure tourism offer, bring more visitors to the Western Balkans, lengthen their stay and increase revenues and employment in tourism industry.
Therefore, the grants to be implemented under the 2nd Call for Proposals will be geared towards the improvement of tourism infrastructure and services along three new regional cultural tourism routes now under development: Western Balkans – Crossroads of Civilizations; Illyricum Trail and Balkan Monumental Trail, and along Via and Trans Dinarica, regional hiking and biking routes and their auxiliary adventure tourism attractions.
“The region is stronger together. This is as true for tourism as is for any other fields. The difference is that tourism has an advantage of growing faster than other industries – it already accounts for 14% of employment in the Western Balkans. More than 12 million tourists entered the region last year. This is why we are intensively working on the development of a joint regional tourism offer and further supplementing efforts of the governments specifically in the cultural and adventure tourism niches,” said Majlinda Bregu, RCC Secretary General.
“Our goals are simple. We want to create more attractive tourism offer which will attract more tourists to the region and lead to bigger profits and more people being employed in tourism. While our Tourism Development and Promotion Project works on the big picture, the grant scheme is making it possible for local level governments, NGOs and development agencies to get involved in tourism and contribute to development of a joint regional offer by implementing actions that will improve the quality of services and tourism infrastructure at the local level.”
To provide sufficient information about the 2nd Call for Proposals to all interested parties, between 12 and 20 June 2019 the RCC will organizes a series of Info Days covering all six Western Balkans Economies, stated the RCC.
(FENA) S. R.
