Taking advantage of smart tourist trends in Latvia

Rural tourism, like all tourism, relies on its ability to capture the attention and imagination of potential visitors. Tourism businesses are increasingly embracing today’s digital age and recognise the potential of social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook and TikTok as powerful smart tools for attracting visitors to destinations. These social media platforms are popular for sharing visually appealing photos from tourism trips and locations. They can generate low-cost publicity for rural tourism projects via their enormous outreach around the world.

Old and new attractions can take advantage of smart social media tourism through purposely crafted features that can showcase attractions in a captivating manner, presenting them in interesting and fun ways to entice visits. A LEADER project in Latvia has embraced this rapidly growing tourism trend by building an upside-down house designed for the (massive) Instagram, Facebook and TikTok markets.

LEADER co-funding helped a family farm to diversify into this rural tourism venture by constructing the locally innovative project in the Smārde coastal area on the Gulf of Riga. It is well located close to Latvia’s capital city population and within a popular tourist seaside region. The family were searching for new ideas to develop their farm’s business prospects through alternative land uses and this led to their idea of creating the trendy new visitor attraction.

Supported by the LAG ‘Partnership for Rural and the Sea’, a LEADER funding package was prepared that allowed the family to construct their novel upside-down building. It was designed to be similar to other attractions of this kind, and consists of a two-floor family house, with a living room, bedroom, children’s room, kitchen, toilet and bathroom, where everything is presented upside down. All fixtures and fittings are attached to the ceiling, floors are set at an angle that creates a disorienting feeling and makes it challenging for visitors to find their balance as they make their way through the house in small groups.

As with other ‘Insta-Tourism’ attractions, the 'Upside-Down House' aims to provide visitors with a stylish occasion to take fun, distinctive, and memorable photographs of themselves in the house. It was constructed with a welcome building for visitors and an events hall, as well as a parking area. Three new jobs were created while the LEADER project also provides opportunities for young local people to gain work experience.

Innovative rural tourism projects such as this can not only benefit the project promoter, they can also act as magnets to encourage visitors into local communities. Other businesses can subsequently benefit additionally from the tourists, such as in restaurants, accommodation and other local attractions. LEADER’s support for the Upside-Down House can thus have knock on benefits for other community-led development projects in the Local Action Groups (LAGs) area. The project’s strong demonstration value helped it to win the most unique LEADER project of the year in 2022 during the ‘LEADER Dižprojekts’ awards that are organised by the Latvian Rural Forum and Latvian LAGs.