The EU funded PIRT (Promoting Innovative Rural Tourism) project participated in the Europe Day Information Fair held on 24 May, 2014 in the framework of Europe Day Information Week organized by EU Delegation to Armenia.
The participation of the PIRT in EDIF raised the awareness of the general public about the project and increased PIRT visibility. During the EDIF the PIRT project was represented in a booth to communicate the project achievements to the general public.
Ms Anna Arakelyan PIRT Project Coordinator shared about the success and project progress with the PIRT booth visitors. She said that the project will achieve stronger regional partnerships and cooperation in the Black Sea Basin region through integrated utilization of physical and human resources and exchange of best practice aimed at enhancing the standards of touristic product and service delivery.
“Europe Day Information Fair is a very good opportunity to once again raise the awareness about the PIRT project and increase its visibility. We decided to organize the PIRT promotion event during Europe Day Information Week to meet large crowds of people and share our latest developments and success within PIRT with you-the general public”, noted Ms Arakelyan while talking to the visitors of the PIRT booth arranged under EDIF.
Ms Arakelyan said that on 17-23 June a group of 15 visitors consisting of the PIRT project partners, touristic service providers and representatives of travel agencies from Georgia, Turkey and Bulgaria will be coming to Armenia on an Exchange visit to discover the beauty of Armenia, the potential for developing rural tourism, as well as learn from Armenian tour service providers and travel agencies”.
The PIRT project is directed to 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 orderto 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.
