We are glad to announce that a new international project “Implementation of sustainable tourism development principles in national park/protected area regions” has been launched. Project partners are: LAG Development Centre (Leading partner), LAG Green Riverland Partnership and LAG Kodukant Läänemaa areas from Estonia; LAG Cesis District Rural Partnership and LAG Business Association of North Kurzeme areas from Latvia; LAG Between Sneznik and Nanos and LAG Dolina Soce areas from Slovenia; LAG ATAHCA area from mainland of Portugal and LAG ADRAMA area from Madeira Island, Portugal.

Aims of the project are:

• To support the sustainability of sustainable tourism enterprises and three level networking between national park/protected areas through transnational cooperation.
• To develop a transnational sustainable tourism products/services joint offer (including introduction to regional quality system of EUROPARC organization) and joint marketing to this offer (using innovative technology and from people to people, mouth to mouth methods).
• To develop 3 level (own region, project regions in own country and transnational partner regions in 4 countries) networking and joint marketing with different type of sustainable tourism partners.

Target group of the project is sustainable tourism providers in different regions, including:

• Rural/periurban what ever kind of (including handicraft, catering, museums, shops etc) tourism entrepreneurs and NGO-s, who are offering or planning to offer sustainable tourism services;
• Rural/periurban artistic entrepreneurs (art, music etc);
• Nature guides.

Joint activities of the project are study tours, joint region to region marketing promotion materials, marketing activcities etc.