Globalisation can create homogenous businesses often unconnected
with a region's locality or cultural identity. You can see it
increasingly in our city and town centres - everywhere is in danger
of becoming the same as everywhere else. Waking up in a chain
hotel, eating in a chain restaurant or wandering through your
average modern shopping precinct, you'd be hard-pressed to identify
whether you were in Brighton or Brussels.
In an economic term known as 'leakage', businesses owned by foreign
interests cause consumer spend to literally leak out the local
economy into the hands of outside ownership, not dissimilar to
pouring water into a hole-ridden bucket. Local businesses, artisans
and entrepreneurs are undermined becoming disempowered as they lose
control over their own livelihoods. Trade liberalisation and
deregulation, the two planks of globalisation are the culprits. In
these times of economic depression, these issues are especially
pertinent. Rural areas, in particular, face economic hardship with
declining populations and disappearing traditional landscapes. This
requires careful economic restructuring to strengthen their
economies and protect their landscapes, cultural identity and
traditions.
Why does all this matter? Responsible and sustainable tourism is
all about diversity; natural and cultural - a celebration of what
makes us different not identical! The proliferation of sameness
threatens both host communities in a destination and an enjoyable,
sustainable visitor experience. A responsible approach to tourism
and local economic development makes better places for people to
live, and for people to visit. A place's uniqueness is a potential
asset for enterprises to develop distinct products and services
that really reflect the characteristics of the local area in which
they are produced. Europe has a unique selling point: its
cultural diversity and heritage.
Recently a new and exciting European project to tackle these very
issues called 'Collabor8' got underway with a week-long inaugural
ceremony. Collabor8 is a transnational European project - 50%
funded by the ERDF Interreg IVB NEW Programme - that aims to
contribute to the economic prosperity, sustainability and cultural
identity of North West Europe. This will be done by forming and
supporting new clusters of local businesses in the cultural,
creative, countryside, recreation, local-food and hospitality
sectors. The concept of 'sense of place' - what makes places unique
and distinctive and therefore attractive to visitors will be used
as a powerful device to bring about sustainable
development.
The nine European Partners that include four UK partners as well as
those from Ireland, Belgium and the Netherlands met in South Wales
to begin to work together to share ideas and experiences. Local
entrepreneurs from each region were also invited to learn about how
local businesses can benefit from Collabor8 and to exchange
information.
"The spirit of cluster development is in marketing your neighbour
as well as you market yourself" said guest speaker Matt Drew, Chief
Executive of the Midlands Meander, sharing the success story of how
enterprises working together have created a rural destination that
rivals the wine routes of the Cape in South Africa.
Cooperation and not all out competition seems to be the key and it
also appears that the whole is indeed greater than the sum of its
parts: "Collabor8 is about both businesses and public bodies
working together effectively to achieve something greater than we
could all acting individually" said Richard Tyler, Sustainable
Tourism Manager for Brecon Beacons National Park Authority, one of
the nine Collabor8 partners. "In the Brecon Beacons, we will be
concentrating on implementing sustainable tourism and will be
supporting clusters with a programme of capacity building,
eco-accreditation, new product development and sense of place
training with budgets available for implementation".
As the project develops, ecoescape will be following with
interest.
By Nick Stewart
