Europe and creative youth tourism

There is a new way of discovering a foreign culture by experiencing it, this method has been growing increasingly for the last decade. Nowadays, the youth no longer conform themselves in attending a traditional sightseeing tours, they need to feel involved into the destination’s daily life. They don’t want to be considered as “tourists”. “Creative tourism is a projection of a new tourism in which natural, cultural and personal resources are not manipulated and exploited but valued and enriched.” Jelincic and Zuvela, 2012

We took this very seriously and in 2014 established Nano touristic biro, which was a great build up in our community in the field of tourism. So now, we are combining two great points in youth field – the issue of the active participation/engagement and the youth tourism.

We decided to implement youth exchange. During our exchange youngster will have opportunity to work together, break barriers between people from different backgrounds, promote inclusion, tolerance and participate in community. In this case exchange will have the topic Europe and creative youth tourism.  

We will use alternative art techniques, green courtyards/ urban development techniques and shape all into a tool that will give ecstatic-participatory bonus to local environment and create a tool which will connect locals with participants – YOUTH EXPERIENCES (tour guides experiences). The results of the youth exchange will be presented in the Maribor city centre and disseminated in every partner’s city as an example of a good practices. As a bonus there will be a blog made by participants during the youth exchange that will present the whole process of knowledge path.

Objectives:

• To raise awareness about today’s’ problem of youth engagement and importance of green/urban spaces and youth tourism
• To exchange good practices
• To raise young empowerment
• To “reconnect” young people to nature and promote their participation to outdoor activities
• To foster creative thinking and expression through art and new technologies
• To foster the value of intercultural dialogue as a mean of promoting cooperation and collective spirit
• To promote the idea of European citizenship
• To promote the programme “Erasmus plus” as a useful tool for future projects