Research – Tourism – Marketing – Networking
Dirk Röder
The cultural heritage of fortified monuments belongs to the most important contemporary witnesses. It’s a built history of today’s Europe in an extraordinary architecture. It has a high potential for cultural tourism, as an economic factor, as a living cultural and historical space for the needs of modern society.
This potential is not sufficiently mobilized. Only very few fortifications are playing in the first class of well-managed, financed and promoted monuments at the tourist markets. It needs instruments and common transnational activities to capitalize this heritage in all regions. The European Cooperation Center of Fortified Heritage -ECCOFORT- in Berlin develops and practices a PROGRAMME FOR CAPITALIZING OF FORTIFIED MONUMENTS with 4 pillars:
- NETWORKING – to manage the tourism, marketing and transnational cooperation
- RESEARCH – for a market-oriented systematization, inventory and mapping
- TOURISM – based on a powerful tourism brand and route “FORTE CULTURA”
- MARKETING – with tailor-made instruments and campaigns for fortified monuments
Introduction: Fortified Heritage – potential for capitalizing
Europe as a continent has the largest cultural heritage and it is important to take care of this CAPITAL, to use it and to refine it socially. It is not for nothing that cultural tourism is a constantly growing economic branch, employer and innovation engine with income effects for cultural sites, cities and municipals, retails, service, hospitality, catering, transport, guides, etc.
Culture routes are an important instrument to present this regional, national and European cultural heritage and to mobilize it as an economic factor. The culture route program of the European Council strengthens this strategy. Themed culture routes make the cultural heritage visible and experienceable.
1. Programme to capitalize the fortified cultural heritage in Europe
The cultural heritage of fortified monuments belongs to the most important contemporary witnesses. It’s a built history of today’s Europe in an extraordinary architecture.
It has a high potential for cultural tourism, as an economic factor, as a living cultural and historical space for the needs of modern society.
This potential is not sufficiently mobilized. Only very few fortifications are playing in the first class of well-managed, financed and promoted monuments at the tourist markets. It needs instruments and common transnational activities to capitalize this heritage in all regions.
The European Cooperation Center of Fortified Heritage –ECCOFORT– in Berlin, develops and practices a PROGRAMME FOR CAPITALIZING OF FORTIFIED MONUMENTS with 4 pillars:
- RESEARCH – for a market-oriented systematization, inventory and mapping
- TOURISM – based on a powerful tourism brand and route “FORTE CULTURA”
- MARKETING – with tailor-made instruments and campaigns for fortified monuments
- NETWORKING – to manage the tourism, marketing and transnational cooperation
2. Fortress RESEARCH for a market-oriented systematization, inventory and mapping of fortified monuments
Experts estimate the occurrence in Europe at around 5.000 fortified monuments from epochs after the introduction of fire weapons in the 14th and 15th century. That includes fortresses, fortified cities, fortified ideal cities, large fortification systems, fortified castles and palaces, fortified sacral buildings, fortified border and defence lines and bunker and bunker systems. It needs a typification of the monuments under the aspect of the tourist markets, as well as a mapping.
ECCOFORT developed a uniform system of types and icons for graphic recognition of fortified monuments, oriented on the demands of tourist markets. This is on the way to becoming the standard in Europe.
3. Fortress TOURISM based on a powerful tourism brand and cultural route “FORTE CULTURA”
Fortified monuments have a very high touristic potential, but until today only a few of them benefit from that. They are uniting diverse offers/attractions at one place and are often a touristic unique characteristic, which fascination spreads over all generation. They are emotionalising, authentic, incisive, cultural speciality with interesting history, tradition, nature and architecture, independent of trends, cycles and demographic development.
The European Culture Route of fortified monuments -FORTE CULTURA- provides for the first time a specialised touristic product for fortress tourism in Europe and furthermore, to experience the rich cultural offer.
Different travel recommendations as sightseeing tours, study tours and excursions, cultural trips or adventure tours, car or bike tours address diverse target groups. The culture route is permanently developing and expanding with new themes and journeys with a high experience value.
More than 100 fortresses from 12 European countries are implemented. It generates economic effects for the fortresses with more tourists, incomes and market presence.
4. Fortress MARKETING with tailor-made instruments and campaigns for European fortified monuments
The fortress heritage needs a new quality of market presence. The quality and the marketing determine the economic success of tourist offers on the market.
With the marketing program for the Cultural Heritage Fortified Monuments, a significant gap will be filled. Fortress architecture and its experience value are for the first time presented nationally and internationally under a uniform brand and a coherent design. A new dimension of market presence of the fortified monuments is now possible. For this case there are two fields of acting:
1. Marketing of the tourism product Culture Route “FORTE CULTURA”
2. Marketing of single fortresses with its tourist offers
Both are linked closely but can also be used separately.
The most important marketing goal is the placement of the Culture Route and its experience offers on the national and international tourism market. This way touristic economically effects for the participating fortified monuments and fortified cities are to be gained. Especially the number of visitors is to be increased and this way an economical, financial, social-cultural and memorial preserving impact for the fortified cities is to be initiated.
Moreover, it is a goal to make the meaning of the rich, wide-spread cultural heritage visible and to improve the understanding in public, politics and the economy.
Via the portal www.forte-cultura.eu, the digital prints and publications are distributed, like the FORTE CULTURA–travel guide, the image prospect, newsletter etc. The portal links with the participating fortified monuments and the tourism organizations. Further e-marketing tools as an event calendar, interactive maps, etc. are provided or are in development. At first, the campaign “EUROPEAN FORTRESS SUMMER 2018” in the European year of cultural heritage was successful carried out. It’s a signal for European cooperation of fortified monuments, as well as the best practice to show the fortified heritage at the tourist markets.
5. Fortress NETWORK to manage the tourism, marketing and transnational cooperation
“FORTS-2-MARKET” is the self-explanatory strategy of the “EUROPEAN FORTRESS TOURISM AND FORTRESS MARKETING NETWORK reg.ass., which was founded in 2014 from 9 Fortification in 7 nations. This association of fortified monuments is a non-government organization and wants to raise the quality level of the European fortress tourism and fortress marketing. Tourism shall generate new income in order to preserve and use the cultural heritage fortified monuments. The network manages the European culture route FORTE CULTIRA and the transnational cooperation of fortresses in marketing activities.
6. Capitalizing effects of the fortified heritage
With these 4 pillars, there are many capitalizing effects for the fortified heritage, such as:
Economic effects:
- Increase of income of fortified monuments by stronger touristic demand
- Increase of income of communal regions by higher utilization of touristic infrastructure and tourism economy, absorption of purchasing power
- Strengthen the competitiveness on the competitive tourism market
- Improvement of profitability of (public) investments into the touristic infrastructure, the touristic offer and the fortification
- Stimulating the expansion of touristic infrastructure
- Tendential relief of public budget and refinancing effects on public expenses
- Preservation or creating of employment and income
- Management of the monument, therefore preservation by usage
Social cultural effects:
- Pulling effect on touristic operators and therefore enrichment of cultural offers also for locals
- Integration of fortified monuments into the modern life of city and region
- Inclusion of fortified monuments into the local city and region development
- Strengthen of identity and life quality in the city/community
- Image win for fortified monuments, city and region and defining of unique characteristics
7. Conclusion
The programme for capitalizing is on a successful way with benefits for all participating fortified monuments. There is a good chance to use this initiative in the Mediterranean region as a chance to maintain, to use and to experience the rich and attractive cultural heritage fortified monuments, as well as to organize a strong and powerful transnational cooperation.
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