INSiGHTS partners discuss sustainable tourism marketing and

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SCOM and thematic meeting in Komárno,

Partners from Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Germany, Hungary, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia gathered at the 5th Steering Committee meeting and 7th thematic meeting. The meeting took place in Komárno, Slovakia on 22–23 November 2018 and was hosted by the lead partner Pons Danubii EGTC.

Partners met on Thursday morning at Restaurant Kortina, located in an old reconstructed fortification in Komárno and were welcomed by Zoltán Bara from Pons Danubii EGTC. The welcome speech was followed by a short presentation of the city of Komárno and the work of Pons Danubii EGTC in the city. The introductory words were followed by the discussion on project management issues and progress of work packages. Project partners were informed about the project performance so far and reminded about the important details regarding the reporting in the last period. Partners presented their actions and plans in the scope of Tour & Picnic events, Michael Meyer from CEEweb and Prof. Ulrike Pröbstl-Haider from BOKU University from Vienna presented the professional publications on the project results and Eva Vovk from the Development Centre of the Heart of Slovenia presented the draft version of the project video. After lunch, the meeting continued with a strategy building session and discussion on sustainable tourism marketing and promotion, smart tools and methods for coordinated sustainable supply linked to greenways and integrated management schemes.

The first day of the meeting was concluded with a guided tour of the city and visit of the fortress. The participants had the opportunity to see the well-preserved remains of the fortification structure, Komárno's main historical monuments symbolizing both the pride and resilience of this historically important town. The fortification structure includes Old and New fortresses at the confluence of the rivers Danube and Váh and the bastions from the Palatine's line to protect the city from the west. After the tour of the fortress, partners walked through the city to the Courtyard of Europe. The unique architectural work is stylistically designed to represent historical architecture typical for the European Union member states. In the middle of the Courtyard of Europe stands a functional copy of the original well which stood in the square until 1878. On the walk through the city, partners stopped in front of the monuments of Komárno’s famous citizens such as Franz Lehár, famous composer and Mór Jókai, the world-famous Hungarian romantic writer and novelist and learned about their importance for the city.

On Friday partners met again at Restaurant Kortina and discussed pilot action plans. First, an overview of pilot action plans implementation was made. Then partners presented their pilot activities and its progress. As part of pilot action plan presentations, the hosts organized a presentation of Virtual reality tour of the fortress that was visited the previous day. Partners had the opportunity to try the VR Tour and see how the fortress looked like while it was still in use. Partners officially concluded the meeting with a presentation of planned activities in the forthcoming months.

The final multilateral meeting will be held in Litija and Šmartno pri Litiji, Slovenia at the end of May 2019.