Project title: Designing a common cycling tourist destination for integration with the iron curtain of a divided border area

Project type: cross-border

Duration of project: 15. 8. 2017-14. 2. 2020

Financing: The project is implemented under the Operational Program of Cross-Border Cooperation Interreg V-A Slovenia-Hungary 2014-2020 and is co-financed by the EU under the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).

Head of the project at SRC Bistra Ptuj: Rosvita Bedrač

Partners:

• Zala Megyei Önkormányzat - a leading partner
• Scientific Research Centre Bistra Ptuj
• Institute of Culture, Tourism and Sport Murska Sobota
• Vas Megyei Önkormányzat Hivatal
• Nyugat-Pannon Terület - és Gazdaságfejlesztési Szolgáltató Közhasznú Nonprofit Ltd
• Municipality of Lendava
• NIF Nemzeti Infrastruktúra Fejlesztő Zártkörűen működő Részvénytársaság

Project goals:

The overall goal of the project is to increase the domestic and international attractiveness of the SI-HU section of the cycling route EV 13 and the associated project area and promote sustainable mild tourism with the presentation and sustainable use of the natural and cultural heritage in the border area. We want to contribute to improving the border crossing: the goal is to improve the integration of SI-HU border areas (by establishing a bicycle connection through a new border crossing point), so that the border line should no longer be a physical barrier in everyday contacts between settlements and / tourist contacts between the Schengen countries. Among other things, there is a single cross-border network of service providers with attractive, competitive, visits to the project area by naming software packages. By strengthening contacts between tourist magnets and surrounding rural areas, by creating additional regional elements of supply based on the supply of magnetic resorts, and with the connection of these, it would be possible to include less developed agrarian settlements in tourism. All of this would contribute to a greater number of domestic and foreign guests in the space, lengthen the time spent in the destination, and the number of overnight stays and consumption at the local level would increase. Due to the multiplicative effects of tourism, positive results would be reflected in the economy, employment and at the social level, in order to raise the standard of living and improve the quality of life, the emigration from the border rural area would also be reduced.

Results:

The result of the project will be the creation of a cross-border cycling tourist destination, which together with the development of products and services will contribute to the increase of tourist attractiveness and, consequently, the visit of the area. With a new, cycling-friendly offer, it will be possible to organize an experiential rich program in the border area, even with a longer visit, and consequently the length of the visit will increase and the number of overnight stays will increase. To this end, 344.3 km of cycling routes with new sign / signs will be used, 9 new joint tourism products and services will be created (thematic routes, tourist packages, bicycle rental, rest areas, e-charging stations, open-air curtain museum, map , mobile application, cycling events). The project area consists mainly of the Monoteric, Őriszentpéter, Lenti and Letenye micro-regions and the areas of Lendava, Ljutomer, Veržej, Murska Sobota, Ormož and Ptuj; in these areas, 650,000 overnight stays were realized in 2015 (due to the low impact of the project we did not take into account the major bathing sites). The planned increase is + 2,500 visitors by the end of the maintenance period. The contribution to the traffic will be measured by monitoring the data on traffic in accommodation capacities: annually we will collect statistical data from the owners of the accommodation capacities, which have new influence on the cycle routes and services. In addition, in 2019, we will also measure the added value of the number of nights by the survey.

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