Summary

The Slovak Karst National Park had no tourist attractions aimed at children. The local association KRAS saw an opportunity to use the area’s rich culture of legends and fairytales to make tourist sites more attractive to children and encourage families to spend more time exploring the region.

The KRAS association used the EAFRD support to cooperate with a Czech LAG  operating under similar conditions, in order to develop a fairytale kingdom, based on the adventures of Carstie the snail at tourist attractions throughout the two regions. The funding helped develop a website to prepare tourists for their visits and promotional material such as games, maps, events and a special children’s fairytale passport.

Results

After the distribution of the fairy-tale book (2500 copies distributed + stories published on web) and promotion of the game more tourist begun to arrive. There was a 15 % rise in guests staying in local accommodation.

Children learn about the area’s history, culture and nature.

Local inhabitants were motivated to explore more attractions in their region.

More cooperation among actors in the tourism industry, encouraging exchanges of experiences and wider use of the fairytale concept.

The project had a knock-on impact on other products and services in the region, with many people using the fairytale concept to increase their sales.  

The project was awarded by the Slovak NRN with the 1st place in the national competition “Projects in LAGs 2014”