site.btaBulgaria, Cyprus, Slovakia, Spain Share Expertise in Developing Sustainable Tourism in Rural Areas

Iva Taralezhkova, Chair of the Devetaki Plateau Association board, told BTA about the Association's project entitled "Interpretation of heritage through rural experience tourism". The project has gathered partners from Bulgaria, Cyprus, Slovakia and Spain who can share their expertise in developing sustainable tourism in small rural areas.

According to Taralezhkova, Bulgaria still lacks sufficient support at the national level to promote the development of rural tourism. She added: "At the international level, Bulgaria exclusively promotes mountain and ski tourism, as well as tourism at the Black Sea. Very little attention is paid to rural areas, which have huge potential. We have a wonderful natural and cultural heritage. This could be an incentive and driver for the development of smaller settlements, for reducing unemployment there and for bringing young people back to these areas."

The Devetaki Plateau Association is confident that Bulgaria can learn from countries with more experience in that regard, such as Cyprus, Spain and Slovakia, while Romania can join similar projects in the future.

Some of the project's activities will be training of trainers, which will take place in the village of Karpachevo, North Central Bulgaria, from September 10 to 12. The training modules include tourism through experiences, digital marketing, identifying and interpreting cultural and natural heritage and digital storytelling. These topics are linked to identifying, evaluating and combining the different elements in a given region that could create tourism products, attractions that will draw people in.

The project envisages the launch of a joint website to enable the exchange of tourists and trainers between the countries participating in the project.