The 5th Interregional meeting and study visit in Finland
The Regional Council of Central Ostrobothnia hosted a study visit in Kokkola between 9.-10.7.2024. The common regional development issue addressed by SYSTOUR is that tourism can play an important role in improving the attractiveness and well-being of places, not only as destinations to visit but also to live, work and investment.
SYSTOUR project partners together with their stakeholders from Spain, Italy, France, Poland and Hungary arrived to Central Ostrobothnia to experience the regions good practises and to give feedback on tourism development in the region.
The maritine history plays an important role in tourism in Kokkola city and in the coastal region. Together with Marjo Rahikka (Kokkola city tour guides) we learned about the Kokkola rural park, the old wooden city Neristan and the Museum block and took a cruise to Tankar, the lighthouse island. The beautiful archipelago of Tankar and the authentic surroundings provided a prefect milieu to discuss the development and the possibilities of coastal tourism from a Central European point of view.
The second day of the study visit begun with the presentation from Matti Hakamäki, the director of the Finnish Folk Music Institute, as he gave us a view to Intangible Cultural Heritage and its possibilities in tourism. The Kaustinen Fiddle Playing and Related Practises has been UNESCO listed since 2021 and the folk music tradition lives strongly in Central Ostrobothnia. As a part of this GP, the partners also had a chance to visit the Kaustinen Folk Music Festival and to even take part in folk dance workshop.
From Kaustinen we continued our day to Salamanjärvi national park, where KPEdu outdoor guide student Jenni Hotakainen shared her presentation on well-being tourism and promotion of nature and fishing tourism in a sustainable way. The project manager of fishing and rural tourism project Henrik Korkeamäki explained the practices that currently take place in our region to promote and revive fishing tourism in the region. The beautiful surroundings of Koirasalmi offered us a change to take a guided hike around lake Pieni Koirajärvi and we also had a change to try out traditional Finnish activities like frying sausages, going to sauna and swimming in the chilly lake. We warmly thank our stakeholders and other partners in taking part of arrangements for the study visit.
After the study trip, the SYSTOUR LP Politecnico di Torino arranged a workshop in Kokkola. As a part of the project, we are working on complexity maps to highlight the strengths, possibilities and similarities in the regions. In the workshop we had a chance to see the work in progress and to give feedback on issues we hope will be highlighted in the complete analysis.