Tourism and Intangible Heritage

The EU Affairs, Policy Development and Programme Implementation Unit within the Ministry for Tourism & Culture is for the second year participating in an initiative organized by the European Commission supported by the EU Member States and the Candidate Countries. The project aims at drawing attention to the value, diversity and shared characteristics of European tourist destinations and to promote destinations where the economic growth objective is pursued in such a way as to ensure the social, cultural and environmental sustainability of tourism.   The theme of excellence for this year’s initiative is tourism and intangible heritage and the subtitle of the award for this year is ‘Best Emerging Destination for the development and promotion of intangible heritage’. Those destinations which have developed a new tourism offer based on the appreciation of their specific local intangible heritage between  2000 – 2007 have the possibility to compete and be selected as 2007 Destination of Excellence. 18 EU Member States and 2 candidate countries namely Austria - Belgium - Bulgaria - Croatia - Cyprus - Estonia - Finland - France - Greece - Hungary - Ireland - Italy - Latvia - Lithuania - Luxembourg - Malta - Romania - Slovenia - Spain – Turkey, are participating in the project.   The national competition is open to all Local Councils in Malta and Gozo together with non-governmental organizations. The Ministry has appointed two external consultants to assist candidates in tapping the eligible implemented initiatives, in the filling of applications and accompanying reports. An Evaluation Board will be choosing the best application during the first half of 2008. It is expected that the winning destination will be selected in May 2008 and will be awarded the European Destinations of Excellence award by the European Commission during the 2008 European Tourism Forum.   Interested candidates who wish to acquire further information may click on the links below.

Nadur: A Best Emerging Rural Zone

Being situated on the easternmost hill of the island of Gozo, with a population of just around 4700 people and 87.5% of its land territory falling outside the permitted development zone, Nadur maintains a vast ambience of rurality and tradition. The tourism development strategies adopted by its Local Council focus on such assets and highlight the locality’s natural landscape and scenic views, involving qualities and standards of sustainability, holistic management and improvement in the area while implementing and offering visitors a purely agro-tourism activity.

The main thrusts of this locality include the promotion of the development of agro-tourism ensuring that farmers are offered a more secure market for their output by the cultivation of citrus and olive trees within the Bingemma and San Blas valleys supporting a visiting agro-tourism community, whilst at the same time offering the development of an end of line process where a company converts produce into local products such as liquors. This triggered integration between visitor experience and locals through a number of activities like fruit picking, which were further enhanced through appropriately designed walks that also highlight the beauty of the scenery in and around Nadur. Moreover the Local Council engaged in restorative works on the two local towers – namely Torri Sopu and Torri ta’ Kenuna – achieving further accessibility to visitors through events organised therein and incorporated various embellishment activities, which together with a number of traditional and one-off events, meetings and conferences enhanced the promotion of such locality.

A number of key indicators easily point out that such thrusts proved to be quite successful. These key indicators include the fact that Nadur has begun to register a higher influx of tourists with these being mostly registered during off-peak periods. Moreover the fulfilment of the agro-tourism concept resulted into an extremely positive characteristic for the locality as it led to the availability of a cottage industry to process the produce of citrus and olives from farmers. Nadur has also managed to host a number of meetings within the locality for overseas delegates and to retain its rural characteristic making this rural aspect the keystone of its assets. All in all this led to the bringing into operation of a number of commercial establishments and to an increase in the number of employment opportunities within the locality.

The ingredients of this success have been the involvement of the local community, the dedication and strategic vision of the Council and the locality’s own assets which have been exalted without being exploited irreversibly. Truly Nadur exemplifies the feasibility of promoting a rural locality as a tourism destination and has shown that this model can work..

During 2006 and 2007 the EU Affairs and Policy Development Unit with the Ministry for Tourism and Culture has participated in a pilot project entitled “European Destinations of Excellence” organised by the European Commission in collaboration with the EU Member States and the Candidate Countries. This project aimed at drawing attention to the value, diversity and shared characteristics of European tourist destinations and at promoting destinations where the economic growth objective is pursued in such a way as to ensure the social, cultural and environmental sustainability of tourism. It identified and gave recognition to destinations which during the past three years have undertaken initiatives by drawing attention to their rural characteristics through their authentic and sustainable offer and have utilized effective promotional tools to market their attributes and accomplishments. The overall development of initiatives within Nadur produced an integrated rural product resulting in the best emerging rural location in the Maltese Islands. Through this project Nadur has gained recognition on both a local and international level whilst also setting an example of best practice to other localities.

European Destinations of Excellence