Common Sustainable Tourism Coordination Platform

OFFER

for establishing and hosting of the

Common Sustainable Tourism Coordination Platform

for implementing the Protocol on Sustainable Tourism and its Strategy

under the Framework Convention for the Protection and Sustainable Development of the Carpathians

Submitted by

Ecological Tourism in EuropeKoblenzer Str. 6553173 Bonn Germany

and

European Wilderness SocietyMain OfficeDechant Franz Fuchs Str 55580 Tamsweg Austria

Ukrainian Office7, Kosicka St.Uzhhorod 88000Ukraine

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INTRODUCTION

Seven countries share the Carpathians, each of them having a different approach to tourism devel-opment. They follow different strategies and use different methods, which can limit the expected positive contributions from tourism and may allow tourism to have a negative impact on local com-munities and the mountainous landscape they are living in.

The Common Sustainable Tourism Coordination Platform (CSTCP) should aim at harmonizing and coordinating country-specific as well as Carpathian wide approaches by providing a common understanding and umbrella platform for planning and management of sustainable tourism. It is part of the comprehensive efforts of the Parties to the Carpathian Convention to coordinate the responsible use, protection and promotion of the Carpathians as a sustainable tourism destination.

The CSTCP should assist the seven Parties (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slo-vak Republic, Ukraine) and its stakeholders in implementing the Protocol on Sustainable Tourism, adopted in May 2011 at COP3, and its Strategy for the Sustainable Tourism Development of the Car-pathians, adopted in September 2014 at COP4.

The purpose of the Protocol and its Strategy is to determine common actions and measures in order to value and sustainably use the outstanding natural and cultural assets for sustainable tourism de-velopment of the Carpathians. This mountain range covers a large part of Central and Eastern Europe and it will become an attractive and sustainable tourism destination that contributes to the quality of life of the local population and to the protection of local cultural and natural heritage.

Ecological Tourism in Europe and the European Wilderness Society are committed to these goals and principles of the Framework Convention for the Protection and Sustainable Development of the Carpathians and the effective and efficient implementation of the Sustainable Tourism Protocol and its Strategy for the Sustainable Tourism Development of the Carpathians.

In order to fulfill the commitment of establishing the CSTCP, both organizations see the need to liaise with the governmental institutions responsible for tourism and the respective stakeholder organiza-tions working in the field of tourism in the Carpathians and in Europe as a whole. The following offer describes the structures and procedures on how to reach this goal.

Before we introduce chapter 1 and 2 on the host city and host building, we would like to point out that in order to run the CSTCP efficiently it is necessary to decentralize functions, which will enable the platform to make optimal use of locations in combination with funding schemes. Therefore, we propose for the initial phase (two years)

• In Uzhhorod (Ukraine) the headquarter and technical competence office

• In Györ (Hungary) the project facilitation office

• In Bonn (Germany) the tourism competence office

After successful establishment of the CSTCP all functions will be moved to the center in Uzhhorod, but with continuing support by the offices of Ecological Tourism in Europe and the European Wilder-ness Society, at least until the year 2025, if agreed with the Carpathian Convention Implementation Committee.

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1. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF UZHHOROD (UNGVÁR) AS THE HOST CITY/TOWN Uzhhorod is situated centrally in the Carpathians at the edge of the Danubian lowland almost in the centre of Europe. It is the westernmost and the smallest regional capital of Ukraine, with a population of 117.600 resident. On a relatively small piece of land people of more than seventy ethnic groups live peacefully together. Ukrainians, Slovaks and Hungarians constitute the largest part of popula-tion. The city is located on both banks of the River Uzh. It is divided into 17 areas and 340 streets.

The earliest authentic mention of Uzhhorod has been preserved on the map of Al Idrisi, dating back to the 12th century. In 1318 the Italian counts of Drugeths became the owners of the city, and built a new stone fortress right where the modern castle is situated, accompanied by the skansen.

Embankment and surrounding ensemble of buildings was built by Czech architects, among the Regional Administration building (1936), which will be at the beginning the host building for the CESTCP. They also decorated the Embankment with lime trees in 1928. It is the longest Lime Tree Path in Europe today, stretching 2.2 km along the Uzh River.

There are a number of companies operating in the city such as: Eurocar (Skoda cars assembly); Grok-lin-Karpaty (Polish garment factory); Henkel (Austria); Yazaki (Slovak operated automotive industry plant) etc. Service sector, trade, transport, construction, real estate activities, financial, hotel and restaurant business are developing rapidly.

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Uzhhorod located 810 km from Kiev and occupies an area of 40 sq. km Uzhhorod residents often joke that it is faster to reach the capitals of neighbouring countries like Budapest (320 km), Bratislava (520 km), Vienna (550 km) or Warsaw (330 km) then the home capital of Kiev. The closes international airport is Kosice (100 km) with daily connections to Prague, Bratislava/Vienna, London and Kiev.

530 km

Uzhhorod

230 km

520 km

650 km

100 km

320 km

700 km

315 km

Warsaw

RzeszowKiev

Cluj-Napoca

BucarestBelgrade

Budapest

Vienna Bratislava

Brno

Prague

Uzhhorod has 13 sister cities and twin towns in Hungary, Germany, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, the USA, Denmark, Finland, Croatia and Montenegro.

The city is magnificent in golden autumn as well as in grey winter, in juicy green youthful spring and in splendid summer. Uzhhorod is not quite itself without its alleys and embankments, grand trees and spectacular cathedrals and, of course, without the citizens who are relentless in discovering the city better every time.

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2. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE HOST BUILDING

The Zakarpattia Oblast has contractualy agreed to provide the CSTCP with the respective office space and conference rooms. This office space will be housed in either a renovated or purposely built building meeting the requirements as defined by the CCIC and the CSTCP. It will also meet the requirement of serving representative functions, press conferences, training seminars and working group meetings.

As this office space will be provided according to the CCIC requirements, the Zakarpattia Oblast will provide for the first months interim office space in the offices of the regional development adminis-tration until the CSTCP offices are constructed.

a) Available rooms (approx. 10 staff) and equipmentThe modern office will provided space for the local language sustainable tourism experts, the man-agement, the accounting and the project leader teams. A receptionist area will also be provided. Mobile working stations will allow us to provide office space for interim short-term specialists from the CCIC as well as the seven parties.

The multifunctional conference room will seat 40 people and will have modern presentation tech-nology including a beamer, video conferencing and a sound system. This multifunctional meeting room will be available not only for press conferences, training seminars and meetings but also for short term exhibitions and presentations.

b) Technical equipmentThe office will be equipped with brand new computers, printers, and telephone, as well as the most up-to-date business software. It will also have a 30 MB internet connection allowing high quality Skype conference calls.

c) Financial arrangements to cover costs for rooms and equipmentA Memorandum of Cooperation has been signed with the Zakarpattia Oblast for covering the costs for the CSTCP office until 2025; Office equipment will be purchased and maintained at the costs of ETE and EWS.

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3. SUPPORTING MECHANISMS FOR IMPLEMENTING THE STRATEGYa) Contributions from the host country/district/provinceThe Zakarpattia Oblast and the City of Uzhhorod will make available public facilities in case there is a need to host larger meetings, e.g. conference halls. In addition hotels and pensions will provide special rates to participants of meetings. Experts, which are moving to Uzhhorod to work in the CSTCP premises, will be guided by the local government to receive the optimum apartment rental conditions.

b) Foreseen projects/third party fundingObviously the implementation of the “Strategy for the Sustainable Tourism Development of the Car-pathians” will be depending on project related funding. The Parties have identified priorities for proj-ects during the last meeting of the CC-WGST in Aggtelek, on which the CSTCP will strictly build on.In order to guarantee a structured approach to third parties funding, the CSTCP will:

• Collect and assess all current projects and initiatives on (sustainable) tourism in the Carpathians to analyse how they match with the priorities of the strategy

• Identify all relevant funding sources beyond the obvious ones, such as European Union Funds (e.g. ERDF, ESF, ECBC), Norwegian Fund, KfW, SIDA, GEF, JICA

• Engage with governmental agencies in Western Europe on bi-lateral cooperation

• Liaise with National Tourism Agencies in the Carpathians to identify and utilise country related funds

ETE and EWS have aproven track-record in attracting international funds to the Carpathian region and is therefore able to guarantee a continuous project based funding in cooperation with the Parties to the Convention and relevant stakeholders.

4. INSTITUTIONAL ARRANGEMENTSa) Description how the institution running the Coordination Platform is involv-ing all Carpathian countries and all relevant stakeholdersThe experiences gained through the BMUB funded project of ETE for drafting the “Strategy for the Sustainable Tourism Development of the Carpathians” builds the perfect starting point for the CSTCP to involve all relevant stakeholders in the Carpathians. The lessons learned have shown that the CSTCP would need to draft a “Communication and Involvement Plan – CIP”, which goes beyond the Terms of Reference for the CSTCP. This CIP would be adopted by the CC-WGST and if necessary by CCIC and implemented by the CSTCP.The basic content of communication and involvement is:

• Integration of the National Tourism Focal Points and National Tourism Task Forces into the operation of the CSTCP

• Establishment of a tourism business (cluster) network through the Chambers of Commerce and National Tourism Agencies in the Carpathians

• Building on the existing network of tourism related NGOs through CEEweb

• Operation of a CSTCP website with up-to-date information on the implementation activi-ties, based on an input-output mechanism developed by the Internet technology team of the EWS

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Furthermore, ETE has established cooperation with institutions in all seven countries of the Carpath-ians during the last project, which are maintained until today.

b) Current links to other institutions in the Carpathians on tourismThe CSTCP should be understood as the center of a network depending on the contributions and assistance of other initiatives and institutions in the Carpathians. Therefore, ETE and EWS will offer a full cooperation and integration of those institutions into the CSTCP, which are contributing to the implementation of the “Strategy for the Sustainable Tourism Development of the Carpathians”. Fore-most, but not limited to, the offer goes to

• Euroregion Karpatskie (Rzeszow/Poland)

• WWF Danube-Carpathian Programme Office (Bucharest/Romania)

• Carpathian Tourism Development Center (Dolny Smokovec/Slovak Republic)

• CEEweb for Biodiversity (Budapest/Hungary)

• Danube Competence Centre (Belgrade/Serbia)

• Carpathian Network of Protected Areas (CNPA)

Furthermore, we are aware that Poland has submitted a full offer and Romania declared its interest for hosting the CSTCP, which we fully respect. Therefore, ETE and EWS are ready to integrate these of-fers and upcoming ones into the network in order to secure the most efficient cooperation structure.

c) Expertise in sustainable tourism of the hosting institution

Ecological Tourism in Europe

Ecological Tourism in Europe (ETE), founded in 1991 in Bonn (Germany), supports the development of sustainable tourism in Germany and Europe. In cooperation with partner organizations, mainly from environmental sectors, ETE implements model projects, especially in protected areas and mountainous regions, to support sustain-able tourism as an element of sustainable regional development. Capacity building and education represent two further key activities. In Central and Eastern Europe, ETE is active for more than 15 years and thus disposes of varied experiences on site.Key Activities:

• Sustainable Tourism Management / Tourism Management Planning (mainly focused on tourism in protected areas)

• Elaboration of strategies and development concepts

• Quality development in the field of tourism and nature protection

• Elaboration of assessments, analyses and expertise reports

• Education, training and capacity building in the field of sustainable tourism / tourism and nature protection

• Policy advice (incl. coordination of national and international working groups) and model projects

• Organization of conferences, expert meetings, information events, seminars and work-shops

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ETE has wide experience in the development and organization of regional model projects to pro-moting sustainable tourism as a basis for a sustainable regional development and cultural heritage in the Central and Eastern Countries, - in particular concerning the needs for collaboration between various actors on local level, and with regard to NGOs, local people and local decision-makers.

ETE works also continuously on the sustainable tourism topic at international level (e.g. the 10YFP SGP PoW3, the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Framework Convention on the Protection and Sustainable Development of the Carpathians). In these processes, ETE supports the develop-ment of policy framework documents, such as the CBD Guidelines on Biodiversity and Tourism De-velopment. As a result of this ETE is initiating and supporting networks in the Central and Eastern European Countries for the enhancement of knowledge of the development and management of sustainable tourism in the context of the Convention on Biological Diversity.

ETE organizes conferences, expert meetings, information events, seminars and workshops both on the national and international levels for the promotion and enhancement of sustainable tourism development and management practices.

The European Wilderness Society

The European Wilderness Society (EWS) is the leading Pan-European, wil-derness and environmental advocacy organization. EWS consists of a very dedicated multi-cultural and experienced professional team representing wilderness and wildlife specialists, protected area management specialist, re-searchers and scientists, sustainable tourism experts, marketing and commu-nication professionals, legal and financial veterans and wilderness advocates. Our mission is to identify, designate, manage and promote European wild ar-eas and wilderness while at the same time assisting these areas to develop sustainable regional business strategies to support the socio-economic de-velopment of these areas.

The portfolio of our organisation includes also a strong training and educational element with spe-cial focus on the continuous improvement of the core competencies of the management of pro-tected areas in dedicated training centers. EWS gives advice to protected areas on how to increase the efficiency of its management, how to develop and implement multi-stakeholder processes to increase the local support, and how to develop international relationships and networks.

The European Wilderness Society has a strong sustainable tourism focus as a tool to improve the social-economic situation of the local community of the protected areas.

The European Wilderness Society also has a very active and international experienced marketing communication department with more than 20 years of experience in the design and implementa-tion of tourism marketing campaigns. This includes offline and online communication tools as well as all the social media channels.

The European Wilderness Society already maintains an office in Uzhhorod and is therefore able to guarantee a timely and professional implementation of the CSTCP according to the project timeta-ble set out by the CCIC.

The European Wilderness Society is committed to the principles of economical effectiveness, respon-sibility and transparency. Therefore the European Wilderness Society management team includes experienced business professionals with profound knowledge in the field of finance, capital man-agement, law and real estate investments with a special focus on Central and Eastern Europe. Its

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wide network of specialists in different European countries enables the European Wilderness Society to take immediate and appropriate actions to reach its objectives. The European Wilderness Society always works in close cooperation with local NGOs, donors, regional and national authorities as well as international institutions. The European Wilderness Society is listed on the EU transparency reg-ister.

d) Personnel arrangements (e.g. covering cost of staff and experts)Upon start of the office, ETE and EWS will cover the costs for 4 multilingual experts permanent-ly located in the CSTCP premises. These experts will be responsible to maintain communication as described in chapter 4.a) and fulfill tasks to research project funding and drafting applications. The experts have been selected with the following skills: business languages English, German, Roma-nian, Ukrainian, Slovak and Polish; development and management of tourism related international cooperation projects; communication and collaboration experience in larger multi-national teams.

This team in Uzhhorod will be supported by ETEs permanent staff, which is highly experienced in sustainable tourism related undertakings, and by the EWS team with its outstanding experience in protected area management, communication, marketing and training. The support of ETE and EWS will take place partially in the premises of CSTCP and remotely from their offices in Germany, Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, and Ukraine.