GARDEN PEARLS
Diversifying garden tourism offer in Estonia and Latvia
The objective of the our project is to diversify the garden tourism offer in Estonia and Latvia by creating an attractive and sustainable garden tourism product and service Garden Pearls. To be more precise we will combine attractive gardens and parks of Estonia and Latvia into one joint cross-border tourism product with the aim to expand and diversify the garden tourism offer, improve the experience of garden tourists and harmonize the approach to garden tourism in our regions.
Gardening tourism is becoming more popular among tourists and more people are making their destination decisions fully or partly based nature and garden tourism offer in planned destination countries. Nevertheless, the potential of garden tourism has been only moderately used till today in Estonia and Latvia, thus it is a right time to join forces and give a strong push to the development of garden tourism in our region. Only by acting jointly can we reach larger target audience, diversify the offer and of course have stronger impact for development of our beautiful garden and parks.
Initially around 80 gardens and parks have expressed their wish to be part of our route, 21 from Estonia and 23 form Latvia. To ensure best possible and diverse visitors’ experience we have all: majestic manor and city parks, collection gardens, arboretums and of course beautiful small private gardens.
Main activities of the project:
- Garden tourism product development and service design;
- capacity building of the owners and managers of parks and gardens that belong to the Garden Pearls;
- marketing and promotion of the Garden Pearls (in local and foreign markets), including also creation of webbased travel guidelink opens on new page, fairs participation, open garden events and of course elaboration of attractive promotional materials;
- smallscale investments in gardens and parks to make them more attractive and improve the visitor’s experience
Partners of the project:
Lead partner of the project is Vidzeme Tourism Association. In addition in Latvia we have in our partnership University of Latvia, Turaida Museum Reserve, NGOs „Limbazu Lauvas“ and „Oleri Muiza“ and 5 municipalities: Amata, Burtnieki, Gulbene, Koceni and Rūjiena.
In Estonia we have in our partnership NGO Estonian Gardens, University of Tartu (Pärnu College); Viljandi County Development Centre, Pärnu County Development Centre, Hiiumaa Vocational School, City of Pärnu and Sangaste Manor.
All partners are representing the gardens and parks in our route and contribute to project with their knowledge and experience to our product development and marketing.
Duration of the project: 01.05.2018 – 30.10.2020
Project budget: 749 755 EUR, including support of the Estonia – Latvia Programme (European Regional Development Fund) 637 292 EUR.
This website reflects the views of the author. The managing authority of the programme is not liable for how this information may be used.
GARDEN PEARLSlink opens on new page are 76 most beautiful gardens and parks in Estonia and Latvia. Come visit us! https://www.gardenpearls.eulink opens on new page
