Regenerative nature tourism – REGGAE

Tourism that strengthens local culture, community and environment

REGGAE

Tourism that strengthens local culture, community and environment

Regenerative nature tourism – REGGAE

Traveling can have a positive or devastating impact on a nature destination and its surrounding society, depending on the design of tourist experiences and services. International trends indicate that travelers are increasingly conscious of sustainability issues and require experiences that fills these needs, which can be seen in the growing slow adventure tourism flows. The Interreg Aurora funded project Regenerative nature tourism – REGGAE will introduce regenerative tourism that is regarded as a transformational approach that aims to fulfil the potential of tourism places to flourish and create net positive effects through increasing the regenerative capacity of human societies and ecosystems. At the same time, the project will address the needs of small and medium-sized tourism enterprises, who are struggling with challenges such as value for money, shortage of customers, identifying sale channels, lack of collegial networks, low visibility and sometimes feelings of loneliness.

The aim of the REGGAE project is to promote accessible and regenerative tourism and to enhance the well-being of entrepreneurs in the project area by building networks andclusters, developing courses, guidebook and novel thematic tourism experiences. By the increased competence of entrepreneurs and the development of thematic tourism experiences co-created together with customers, researchers, local community and entrepreneurs, tourism firms can attract new customers.

Finally, the competitiveness of the tourism firms is enhanced while bringing wider benefits to the travel destination. Cross-border products through cross-branch networks and clusters support the understanding of valuable joint culture and rich history as well as how our prosperous but vulnerable nature is as a resource for all. Thus, the acceptability of sustainable tourism services increases, and tourists take home lessons on how to give back to nature. Regenerative tourism will increase well-being and prosperity for nature, society, culture and a more stable income for entrepreneurs.

Read more on the project website.

The project has been appointed as an Operation of Strategic Importance by the Interreg Aurora Programme. This means a project which provides a significant contribution to the achievement of the objectives of the Interreg Aurora Programme.

Contact: Pia Smeds, LUKE Luonnonvarakeskus – pia.smeds@luke.fi

Lead Partner EU
Luonnonvarakeskus (LUKE)

Project partners
AB Kristinestads Näringslivscentral
Gold of Lappland Ekonomisk förening
Sveriges Lantbruksuniversitet
Itä-Suomen yliopisto (University of Eastern Finland)
Centria-ammattikorkeakoulu Oy
Mittuniversitetet

TYPE OF PROJECT
Regular project

SUB-AREA
Aurora

PRIORITY
Education, culture and sustainable tourism

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVE
Culture and sustainable tourism

PROJECT DURATION
2023-09-01 – 2026-08-31

TOTAL PROJECT BUDGET
1 450 512 Euro

EU-FUNDING, INTERREG AURORA
942 832 Euro

STATUS
Ongoing

Social, ecological, and economic sustainable development is an overarching goal in the Interreg Aurora Programme.

The REGGAE project contributes primarly to the following UN Sustainable Development Goal.

Project News

Interreg Cooperation Day Open Doors at Centria in Kokkola, Finland
Events

Let’s celebrate cooperation across borders!

From 21 September for a month every year, Interreg comes together to celebrate cooperation across borders, regions, rivers, mountains and even bureaucracies with events taking

Steering Committee meetings in Vaasa
News

New Interreg Aurora projects approved

The two Steering Committees, for sub-area Aurora and sub-area Sápmi, have met 14-15 June in Vaasa to decide on new cross-border cooperation projects in the