Promoting Cultural Heritage Tourism Across Europe
- Client: The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
- Partners: The European Union, National Geographic, Old Town Creative + Interactive
- Project Duration: 2016 - 2023
Project Description
With funding from the European Union, the UNESCO World Heritage Center led a multi-national initiative to create an innovative content marketing platform to preserve and promote Europe’s Cultural World Heritage Sites. Solimar International, in collaboration with National Geographic Partners, played a key role in this project by developing new and utilizing existing media, travel, and branding resources of both UNESCO and National Geographic to inspire travelers to explore Europe’s rich cultural heritage.
Solimar’s contributions included working closely with heritage site managers, destination marketers, and tour operators to design and implement programs that enhance tourism offerings’ quality, authenticity, and sustainability. In addition, Solimar supported stakeholder engagement and strategic destination planning efforts. Solimar then integrated the UNESCO-recognized cultural heritage sites into a consumer-friendly platform (www.visitworldheritage.com) and featured a series of thematic routes designed to promote sustainable tourism development across Europe.
Major Activities
Solimar International assisted the UNESCO/World Heritage Centre and National Geographic partners to:
- Work with UNESCO/World Heritage Center to identify all possible World Heritage sites and destinations that fit within these selected route themes;
- Organize workshops with stakeholders and Sustainable Tourism Committees to develop destination strategies and action plans;
- Develop a strategy for the coordinated destination management and marketing for each route;
- Design logos and brands along with specific guidelines for their use;
- Develop a highly engaging web and mobile platform that will be the public face of the European Cultural Heritage Routes initiative;
- Collaborate with UNESCO to select final indicators that enable the Committee to monitor and evaluate progress and make adjustments as needed;
- Develop a training program to fulfill capacity-building needs;
- Develop a network of travel trade partners, social media influencers, and travel media to help promote the cultural journeys and participating WH sites; and
- Produce and publish social media content to drive traffic to the site.
Results
- Carried out research on trends and travel preferences relating to heritage tourism in key source markets;
- Developed the site criteria and selected the four routes, including sites and themes;
- Increased partnership, cooperation and coordination among tourism stakeholders;
- Developed strategies and action plans for the selected sites and routes;
- Developed world-class branding and identity guidelines for each thematic route;
- Developed a robust, scalable desktop and mobile MapGuide website featuring World Heritage Sites and Routes with media-rich itineraries and site profiles; and
- Continued promotion of the website platform through the management of Visit World Heritage social media platforms.
