Some aspects of the Development of Cultural Tourism

One of the very first activities of the Contemporary Old City Project in North Karelia, Finland was to make an inventory of cultural and historical sites in the region. Naturally, many already existing channels of touristic information were used as sources of information. Furthermore, some materials produced by regional authorities were utilised, too. For example, the Regional Land Use Plan (Regional Council of North Karelia) offered detailed information about built cultural environments as well as culturally and historically valuable buildings.

The inventory work resulted in a list of 500 objects in North Karelia. The selected approach to culture and history was wide, and objects related to handicraft, arts, music, theatre, local history, history of businesses, history of transportation, religion, galleries, food, statues and monuments, museums, architecture, etc. were equally taken into account. All sites were listed, firstly, by municipalities, and secondly, by thematic content. Only after this process was it possible to describe the core content of our region’s history and culture, and place the sites in this overall picture of culture tourism in our region. 

How will this material be used in the development of culture tourism in North Karelia? The inventory was exactly what was needed to produce background information for the Culture Tourism section on the revamped VisitKarelia.fi website, which will be launched on 16 Jan 2014 at the Nordic Travel Fair in Helsinki. Even before decision on how to structure the Culture section in practice, it was found extremely useful to benchmark how the same thing has been done elsewhere. For example, the VisitEstonia website is an impressive example with interesting story-based content and a strong thematic approach. For sure, we are not able to offer tourism information in 14 languages as the Estonians currently do, but this example was in many ways worthy of deeper familiarisation.

Tourism is growing and the amount of Russian tourists has been increasing in Finland, including North Karelia, South Karelia and the Helsinki area. There are also many regions, for example, in Estonia and Latvia, which are now actively investing in the development of culture tourism products and services in general, and for the Russian market in particular. Why not exchange experiences and share knowledge with tourism developers, who are facing similar challenges and searching for feasible solutions? Personally, I was lucky to be among those whose application to the Nordic-Baltic Mobility Programme of the Nordic Council of Ministries was approved this year. The grant enabled one week’s study trip to Tallinn, Riga and Cesis.  

From the study trip, I returned with a suitcase full of touristic materials, many new contact details to be added to the network, plenty of new experiences to be shared and a lot of new ideas to be implemented in our own ENPI project. In many discussions with Estonian and Latvian colleagues, it was continuously emphasised that the culture sector needs investments and development initiatives, even in economically tough periods. 

In many regions the role of tourism in the regional economy is growing. At the same time, the structure and volume of culture services are under political discussion. How can a sufficient range of cultural services be maintained or even improved in this complicated economic situation? In practice, how well can the expectations of culture tourists be met at weekends, if, for example, museums are closed on Saturdays and Sundays because of municipal budget cuts? It is a question of strategic decisions, product and service development with innovative solutions, intensified productisation, etc., and first and foremost, a clear understanding of the importance of tourism for the regional economy and importance of cultural content to the regional tourism offering.

Erja Lehikoinen

Project Manager, City of Joensuu

Contemporary Old City: Enhancing Cultural Tourism across the Border

What is a result?

...and how does it differ from an objective? These are two very relevant questions, as these concepts seem interchangeable in some projects. Some funding programmes use slightly different terminology, e.g. outcomes and outputs, which causes further confusion. Sometimes people talk about impact and relevance, and the list of esoteric words goes on and on. It is difficult to keep up with all these terms, but unfortunately they cannot be completely ignored. But once one understands the logic behind these terms, life becomes easier. When one has grasped what a project is and how it works, the terms are no longer a very big problem.

So why is the definition of result important? Because it is an indispensable piece in a logical chain which constitutes a project, and if you do not know how it differs from the next item in the chain, you cannot fully appreciate the way in which projects are supposed to bring about their effects. 

Here’s how it works:

Activities produce results;

Results enable specific objectives;

Specific objectives contribute to overall objectives.

Consider the verbs that I have used here. None of them imply a fully automatic mechanism, which would take us to the next step. All advancement from activities towards objectives requires some amount of work. Usually results follow activities with a little work, but specific objectives are not necessarily fulfilled even if the intended results are produced – even if a lot of work is put into the process. What is more, overall objectives may fail even though specific objectives are fully attained and the project is a complete success. Basically this means that a project may fail miserably although all activities have been implemented as planned. 

To further illustrate how it works, here’s a simplified example:

Project A brings together a group of experts so as to make use of their knowledge in the project (activity);

a handbook of best practices is produced based on this knowledge (result);

knowledge/ability among the target groups is increased (specific objective);

there is an increase of X % in statistics on the regional level (overall objective).

Even if the activity is successfully implemented, the book still needs to be written. The project manager, with the help of his/her project assistant and the experts, writes the book and gets it published, which is a tangible result that makes possible for the target groups to increase their skill level. But the specific objective will not be fulfilled until a sufficient number of members from the target groups have read the book. This would be the hardest thing to accomplish in this project, since you cannot force people to read books. If the project publishes the book but nobody reads it, the project has failed. The overall objective is obviously affected by a very considerable number of factors other than the project but the project is expected to contribute to it.

The idea which can be extrapolated from this example is that results are more tangible than objectives. They also do not automatically guarantee any benefit and are not ends in themselves. The book is not useful until it is read and it should not be the goal of the project. In our example above it is also easier to measure the result than the specific objective: the book either exists or it does not, but how do you measure whether people have read it? And if they read it, did they gain any insights or new ideas? What could be a good indicator for learning?

Let us leave these questions unanswered for now. If you want to hear the answers, make sure you attend our one of coming thematic seminars!

Toni Saranpää

Programme Coordinator