On 16th of October an international conference was organized by Harghita County Council in collaboration with La Vienne General Council, with the aim of presenting to local interested people the successful touristic model of La Vienne County, France. Owned to the initiation of Harghita County Council this best practice was presented by Mr. Dominique Reant, the vice-president of La Vienne General Council and the president of the Committee of Tourism Department of the county, as well as by Mr. Hugues Lallemand, director of the Touristic Agency of La Vienne County. During his welcome speech, Mr. Csaba Borboly, president of Harghita County Council emphasised that we can learn a lot from the French model presented here.
He added that ‘touristic projects were carried out, touristic offices were established in Harghita County, spending millions of Euros for promotion, however clear results are still not seen, since the number of guest nights have not increased at all. The financial background is not a problem, we dispose also of people willing to do for boosting tourism in Harghita County, but something is missing for having efficient results. What is it? We are searching the answer for this question.’
Mr. Szabolcs Korodi, architect, held the first presentation on Harghita Mountain Development Plan, which targets the unified touristic development of settlements lying in more administrative territories. This plan has been elaborated after one and a half year of consultation and aims to develop touristic supply with a unified image in the concerned region by being in concordance with forest and wild management too. One essential element of this lies in boosting sport tourism and as a the first step a 50–60 kilometre long ski slope would be developed during the upcoming ten to twenty years.
On behalf of La Vienne County the abovementioned invited representatives, Mr. Dominique Reant spoke about the necessity of collaboration, which proved to be very efficient in their case, all the more since they have started almost from zero and developed a fruitful touristic sector, which could not have been realized without the collaboration between concerned parties, their constant and persistent work.
Mr. Hugues Lallemand, director, in the course of his comprehensive presentation, mentioned that La Vienne County being situated in the middle part of the country was not a chosen destination place of tourists because people had been solely crossing their county and then stepping toward more popular touristic destinations. It was not a famous region, for the reason why they have realized the potential lying in ‘figuring out’ touristic attractions, as they really did so. Based on the initiation of the county council and in collaboration with the local communities they have developed the Futurescope programme which functioned as a touristic bomb in the region since thanked to this, yearly around 1.7 million people are visiting it, but in all 4.7 million tourists are visiting their county too, and more ten thousand permanent employees work within the sector. Thanked to the Futuroscope the Central Park was established, which after the EuroDisney near Paris, is the most visited entertainment centre. Before figuring out and establishing these, the visitors have merely stayed around 5 minutes in their region and stepped further.
In order to change this situation they have created touristic attractions naming them after animal and castle names. In all these new initiatives a major role has been played by bringing in accordance two important sides: commerce and communication. Their future plans include also establishing a swimming village, expectedly during next year for those who like fishing, swimming and so on.
Mr. Hugues Lallemand also said that a lot of individuals would have liked to get involved in financing the Futurescope programme, but they have used instead state support, involving European funds as well. According to the specialist, for establishing a successful tourism it is highly important to have rich gastronomic supply as well as efficient communication through internet and mass media. In case of Harghita County he considers that it needs a unified communication, the concerned actors should collaborate and accordingly the websites should be developed. He also remarked that Harghita County is a beautiful region but this is not enough: there is need for establishing efficient collaboration among the owners of hotels, pensions, restaurants, sport courts, adventure parks and so on.
The president of Harghita County Council concluded that after witnessing the abovementioned collaboration in La Vienne County, this should happen also in our case. In Harghita County, different actors within the concerned sector are not communicating with each other till in the case of La Vienne they are operating a common 24 hour service of touristic information office, the dispatcher persuading interested tourists on the worthiness of visiting their region. Based on this French model the actors in Harghita County should also know each other’s activity and reservations, because, for example, in case one of them has no more rooms left available, it may transmit the reservation to another accommodation that still has free rooms. In such case, the concerned tourists would not have been let to go to another region. This should be our common goal: to attract more and more tourists who consume and leave their money in our region. Mr. Csaba Borboly also mentioned his hope that a successful partnership will be developed between La Vienne General Council and Harghita County Council.
Miercurea Ciuc, 16th of October 2013
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