MeetNature
COSME Programme 2014
COS- TFLOWS-2014-3-15
15 months
1.
ST PATERAKIS & CO LP,
the project coordinator - GREECE
2.
Municipality of Chania - GREECE
3.
E-Seniors - FRANCE
4.
Život 90 - CZECH REPUBLIC
5.
MERAK VIAGGI S.A.S. - ITALY
KO meeting in Greece
The ambition of ‘Meet Nature’ is to overcome
significant obstacles
of tourism and Seniors’ transnational mobility, most
of which have already been determined
during previous actions taken by the European
Commission. These obstacles comprise:
Tourism in the EU:
- Seasonality is a constant challenge for European
transnational tourism, since highseason
visitor-nights (usually July-August) account for one
third (on average) of the
annual total and there are two medium season periods.
- Countries with winter high-seasons (e.g. alpine
areas of Italy, Austria; mountainous
Romania etc) also face tourism flow problems during
other periods
- Employment in the tourism sector follows similar
seasonal patterns, thus affecting
income and well-being of seasonal and part-time
employees
- There are various societal pressures related to
high-season tourism, i.e.:
o Public service and infrastructure demand
o Environmental pressures for receiving destinations, during problematic
periods for natural resource availability (e.g. water)
o Human labour intensive employment during the ‘holiday’
months
Senior mobility:
- Limited travelling mobility of Seniors, especially
in terms of transnational leisure trips
- High-season travelling for seniors can be a burden,
owing to extreme weather
conditions in some cases (e.g. Northern Europe
destinations in summertime; alpine
Europe destination in wintertime)
- Social isolation of Seniors owing to erroneous
perception that they are ‘disinterested’
in trying new things and ‘retired’ from life’s
experiences
- Exclusion of Seniors from ‘exciting’ parts of modern
life, among which is outdoor
visits and modern ICT tools
Low mobility of certain social groups (e.g. youths and
seniors) leaves a significant gap in
demand for low-medium season tourism, since these
groups would be available for traveling
year-round.
The most highly appreciated asset of a destination for
Seniors is nature, according to the
most recent studies (Tourage,
2013). Nature has always offered plenty of recreational
activities, and this truth has been recognised by many actors in the tourism industry.
Nevertheless, the relationship of travellers
with nature is mostly staying on a superficial
level, where nature acts as the mere scenery or
background for athletic, artistic, religious,
gastronomic and other activities. Many travellers have experienced the beneficial effect of
clean air, water, flowers or trees when outdoors, but
very few of them ever knew what
nature really is.
MeetNature is a product especially designed to bring seniors
in contact with nature’s complexity and diversity. MeetNature is a
project funded by the COSME programme of the European Commission.
The aim of MeetNature
is to combine the benefits of (a) interacting with nature and (b) of
creative and playful learning (CPL), with the beneficial experiences that seniors
enjoy through transnational travelling and second chance learning to mobilise
transnational tourism flows during low and medium season.
The individual objectives that MeetNature aims to fulfil are:
·
To deeper explore Seniors’
attitudes towards CPL and experiential activities in nature;
·
To record and adopt best practices
of CPL for adults and seniors in particular;
·
To explore the
compatibility of protected and non-protected natural areas (ecotopes)
with accessibility and other functional needs and particularities of seniors;
·
To record and adopt best
practices for using audio-visual assistance (through ICT) for facilitating seniors’
participation;
·
To create side-products
(e.g. video footage) that will promote nature conservation (social motivation)
and the creation/participation in similar products elsewhere;
·
To measure the
willingness-to-pay for the tourism product developed;
·
To disseminate the
characteristics and importance of the new product to various actors on the
supply-side (e.g. tourist operators, tourist professionals) and on the
demand-side (seniors organizations, public authorities).
The fulfilled objectives will also provide
solutions to existing obstacles, i.e.:
·
Provide a successful
paradigm for seniors who would like to travel and experience nature or take
second chance learning trips
·
Provide CPL and
audio-visual ICT tools that will assist in fighting social isolation and exclusion
of seniors
·
Reinforce inbound
alternative tourism flows
·
Create flows during low
season, since nature’s best-suitable periods are spring (low season, in almost
all member states) and autumn (medium to low season, depending on the member
state)
·
Assure reliability of the
model in other areas and member states, owing to the general benefits of CPL
and the local differentiation of nature’s characteristics
·
Relieve environmental
pressures and promote conservation of important natural areas, thus providing
beneficial synergies with EU conservation policies
As an end-user organisation, E-Seniors role is
to work with the target population (older adults 55+ years) and to provide
their ideas and feedback related to the low and medium season tourism at natural
sites. Moreover, E-Seniors is responsible for organization an information
event in Paris at the beginning of the project, gathering feedback from the
target groups for the initial project questionnaire and recruiting & accompanying
20 local seniors to travel and test the developed tourism package in Greece.