Realization of the Study trip to Nature park Schwarzwald

Posted on August 18, 2010

Within project of Re-discovering Cultural Treasures of Old Royal Montenegro, in cooperation with Nature park Schwarzwald from Germany, the Centre for Sustainable Tourism Initiatives has organized a study trip from 08. till 13. August 2010^th year.

The aim of this trip was to present the best practices of tourism and cultural workers from Schwarzwald to Montenegro, which has managed to become one of the leading tourist destinations, basing its bid on the combined presentation of cultural heritage and traditional products.

In accordance with the objectives, the Centre for Sustainable Tourism Initiatives has chosen 12 representatives of individual households and small entrepreneurs from four districts of the Old Royal Montenegro, which are engaged in traditional agricultural production or have genuine environmental values, to participate at this study trip.

It is very important to stress that Schwarzwald  has the same problem as we do. Local residents are leaving the area. This resulted in reduced production of traditional products, lack of pasture and led to a slowdown in tourism. Therefore, the Nature park Schwarzwald made the strategy- in collaboration with local officials and NGO sector, within which they stimulated the producers of authentic products to remain at the existing production, improve product quality following the European standards and do its placement in tourist market. The result was impressive- they made a 15-20% increase in sales compared to previous years.

What is definitely left a positive impression on the group, is that farmers from the Nature park gives consumers the opportunity to inform themselves at first hand about the nature-friendly production and careful processing of regional products. The Black forest landscape as we experienced it, has been created by many centuries of use by man. The unanimous conclusion is that it can only be preserved by sustainable agriculture and forestry. Therefore, Nature park maximum aim is preservation through use.

Stay in the Nature park included meeting with key activities of the area, such as local marketing brand "authentic Black forest", visitations to local producers of wine, cheese, honey, meat and meat products in order to understand the criteria and methods of its production. Then as one of activities, was organized a short hiking tour with a visit to the distillery and Black forest Open Air Museum as well as information about German association of rural women.

Team from national television, Natura Viva, will documented and broadcast the event to the general public after our return to Montenegro, so they can learn more about the best practices from environment. The project is part of a long-term campaign conducted by the Centre for Sustainable Tourism Initiatives and is funded by the European Union contributing 90% of the total, 8% from GTZ and 2% from the Ministry of Tourism and the National Tourism Organization in Montenegro.

The study trip was followed closely on a daily basis, by representatives of the press and a variety of specialized journals from Schwarzwald region, which also contributed to the publicity of this project, and served also as a good advertisement for Montenegro as one of  the former recognizable tourist destination for the German market.

The trip program in brief:

• The visit was initiated with welcoming and presentation of the Nature park by the park director, Mr. Karl-Heinz Dunker and its key activities and then our group had marketing presentation of local brand "authentic Black forest" and its management, future development, presented by Mr.Binder, executive of the local brand. This was followed by visitation to the wine-growers association where we learned more about formation, fabrication, marketing and concept of the aggregation "Wineparadis Ortenau" and his projects and then had wine tasted.
• The next day our group spent at Tennenbrou (Mooshof) at Gunter's family where we visited cheese diary and saw the process of cheese fabrication and storage and also had guidance through the farm and biological agriculture where we learned about different ways of selling products from the farm. Then at Nordrach had visitation to family Uhl where on the farm with goats and sheep we learned more about one of the "authentic Black forest" member: criteria for meat products and the different ways of marketing the products from meat (like sausages and similar). Then our group left to the Heidenbuhlhof to Mrs. Webering and had short hiking tour called "fruit-distillery-road", where we were informed about the tourism road and learned more about cultivation of the fruits and then tasted the liquors.
• The next day our group came to Gutach and had guiding tour through the Black Forest Open Air Museum (Vogtsbauernhof) where we saw how people have lived and worked in Black Forest farmhouses 400 years ago. After that interesting experience our group proceeded to Oberharmersbach, Friedershof to Mrs. Schnaiter where we visited a farm family and learned more about farming, holiday flat and different ways of selling their local products and also got some valuable informations about "German association of rural women".
• On the last day of stay in Schwarzwald, we summarize impressions through joint workshop and the elaboration of the following topics:
  • local brand development "authentic Black forest";
  • which stakeholders\organizations should be involved in development of tourism products;
  • which marketing strategies should be used in tourism context.