Promoting Innovative Rural Tourism in the Black Sea Basin region: Exchange visit to Armenia
Heifer Armenia with the support of the European Union is happy to announce that it will be hosting a regional group of tourism sector service providers from Georgia, Turkey and Bulgaria visiting Armenia in the framework of the EU funded Promoting Innovative Rural Tourism (PIRT) project. The project is implemented by Heifer Armenia as a lead partner in cooperation with other three partners from Georgia, Turkey and Bulgaria, the press service of Heifer Armenia reports.
The regional group of tourism sector service providers will be in Armenia on exchange visit to discover the beauty of Armenia, the potential for developing rural tourism, as well as learn the specifics of Armenian rural tourism from Armenian tourism service providers and travel agencies who will be sharing with the visitors their best practice and skills. The exchange visit to Armenia will start on 17 June and will end on 20 June 2014. The regional group will be visiting touristic attractions of Armenia starting from Ararat marz getting to Vayots Dzor and Syunik marzes of Armenia. The group will be visiting and admiring such touristic treasures of Armenia as Khor Virap, Aghavnadzor, Tatev, Vorotan, Ukhtasar, Jermuk, Lake Sevan etc.
The PIRT project is directed at supporting regional cooperation and cross border partnerships for economic and social development in four Black Sea Basin countries (Armenia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Georgia) based on combined resources through creation of rural tourism networks in order to promote joint tourism development initiatives and traditional products.
In the framework of the project, a network of trained and capable local service providers in rural tourism and travel agencies will be established which will develop and sell a unique touristic product Single Cross-border Visitor package (SCBV package). The SCBV package will increase the inter-flows of visitors on the regional level and contribute to unprecedented cooperation between national authorities in the region and intra-country, aimed ultimately to sustaining the cross-border impacts of rural tourism.
PIRT is co-financed by the European Union in the amount of 472,923.43 EURO through the European Neighborhood and Partnership Instrument. The project began in November 2013 and its duration is 18 months.