Professional news
Latvian Country Tourism Association is a partner in the project „Corporate Social Responsibility Training'', where partners from Latvia, Lithuania, The Netherlands, Poland, Crotia and Greec have gathered, to apply in their home countries Travelife Sustainability System for Tour Operators & Travel Agencies, with aim to rise awarnese of tourism impact, manage and improve social and environmental actions by complying with the sustainability criteria, as well as to support effective measures, trainings and consultations. More information about Travelife system can be found here http://www.travelife.info/ Press release about project updates can be found here!
On the 17th and 18th of June, the University College of Birmingham (England) have hosted the 9 partners of the EU project TransCSR (Transparency of CSR skills through ECVET in European tourism, EC Leonardo da Vinci Transfer of Innovation (DE/13/LLP-LdV/TOI/147659)) in order to plan the next steps of this Life Long Learning project.
The 21st International Travel Trade Fair Balttour 2014, 7–9 February at Kipsala International Exhibition Centre, invites to try the new season’s best and most attractive travel deals in Latvia, the Baltics and around the world!
On 6–8 February 2014, Riga will host the "Balttour" forum – the opening event of the leading travel trade fair in the Baltics, "Balttour 2014" – which will be attended by more than 350 tourism professionals from more than 15 European and Central Asian countries.
Because we Latvians eat so many potatoes, why not celebrate the potato harvest? Country Traveller has joined with the Latvian Association of Potato Growers and Processors and the Kalnciema Street Block to organize a Potato Festival!
The County Traveller information tent will be an embassy for the countryside. Here you will be able to find the best places to find the widest variety of countryside goodies, from potatoes to grapes. The Putni folklore group will bring music to the celebration, and later the women of Rucava will demonstrate their song skills. After that, potato growers will take the stage to share in their wisdom – which types of potatoes are best for crispy potato pancakes, which ones are most productive, which ones are in the greatest demand, which ones should be bought, which ones should be planted, etc. Ēriks Dreibants from the Trīs Pavāru Restaurant will offer a master’s class on using modern recipes to cook potatoes. Sandra Aigara from the “Zvanītāji” traditions centre and the women from Rucava will get busy with traditional dishes such as Kurzeme soured soup, potato packets with creamy bacon sauce, and crispy potato pancakes with bacon. You will learn many interesting facts about potatoes. There will be potato relay races and competitions.
Festival programme here.
Media information here.
To promote countryside travelling and to give a presentation of what a visitor would experience and enjoy in the countryside we have produced 7 new videos http://www.celotajs.lv/cont/about/video_en.html. Each one is about half a minute story about a particular topic: seasons of a year, open farms and craft shops, Latvian symbols, etc. The videos are presented in our web site, social networks, and they will be demonstrated in rural tourism promotional events.
On 5th June in Brussels, the president of the Latvian Countryside Association "Lauku Celotājs", Asnāte Ziemele received an award Best Life-Environment Project for POLPROP-NATURA project in EU LIFE programme. The project took place in the SlītereNational Park as a demo territory from 2009-2012. "Lauku Ceļotājs" executed the project together with the people and organizations of Slītere. The sustainable tourism development model was created by attracting local entrepreneurs, inhabitants, local authorities and administration of SlītereNational Park. This experience was used for making proposals for environmental protection and tourism development policy.
The new Executive Committee will lead and manage EuroGites during the period of 2013-2016: Andy Woodward, FARMSTAY UK - President (UK), Klaus Ehrlich, RAAR - Secretary General (ES), Asnāte Ziemele, Latvian Country Tourism Association, Jan Tjosaas, HANEN (Norway), Panos Poulos, Hellenic Agrotourism Federation (Greece), Linas Zabaliunas, Lithuanian country tourism association, Patrick Farjas, GITES DE FRANCE (France), Hans Embacher, Urlaub am Bauernhof in Österreich (Austria).
„Lauku ceļotājs” participate in Project „AcTour: Active Tourism for Sustainable Development” where partners from Spain, Bulgaria, Slovenia and Latvia intends to transfer an innovative, tchnology-enhanced and job-related Training Guide and Curriculum on Active Tourism as a new professional profile for European rural regions. Project results will be available here http://www.activetourism.org/
The 4th European Congress on Rural Tourism, organised jointly by EuroGites and our Romanian partners of ANTREC, is now officially launched to take place in Romania, October 7-10, 2012. Detailed programme here. Follow program updates in the congress web site: www.europeanrtcongress.org
