Eskişehir Advances with Rural Tourism (ETAP) project carried out its first learning mobility on 8 – 14 November 2021 in Amsterdam, Netherlands

Eskişehir Advances with Rural Tourism (ETAP) project carried out its first learning mobility to Amsterdam. ILA hosted 12 people delegation consisting of the representatives of Eskişehir Governorship, Eskişehir Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism, Seyitgazi District Governorate, Sivrihisar Municipality, Çifteler Municipality and Osmangazi University.

On the first day of learning mobility, participants discussed the tourism sector’s contribution to economic development from global and local perspectives and analysed indicators of development data with comparisons of Europe, the Netherlands and Turkey. The second day of the training focused on the services provided in rural tourism, the Dutch rural tourism ecosystem and the Government’s strategy to expand rural tourism throughout the country. Sustainability in rural tourism was the main agenda on the third day of the mobility. Supporting agricultural tourism with sustainable business models and services and the types of certification applied in this field were studied in detail.

The ETAP project is carried out under the coordination of Eskişehir Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism with the support of the European Commission Erasmus+ Grant Program. The project aims to contribute to economic development by spreading guest housing and rural tourism in Eskişehir. The particular goal of the project is to set up two guesthouses in Çifteler and five in Seyitgazi and Sivrihisar districts.