Gastrocert: Gastronomy and Creative Entrepreneurship in Rural Tourism

Working in collaboration with partners in Spain, Sweden and Italy, the Gastrocert project will explore how the development of local gastronomy can help to protect rural heritage values, and how entrepreneurial culture can enhance locally produced food as a value-added touristic experience.
Sustainable landscape management in rural areas requires the creation of opportunities that treat landscapes in the context of their historical, cultural and social factors. The growing popularity of gastronomy efforts, as part of broader sustainable tourism development strategies, calls for study of the dynamics between 'heritage', 'tourism' and 'creative entrepreneurship'.
The objectives include understanding the important role that food plays in cultural identities and promotion of local and regional traditions. The project also emphasizes the significance of local knowledge, skills and practices regarding heritage assets and how experiential journeys through cultural landscapes promote gastronomic tourism.
The project will entail high-quality, interdisciplinary and collaborative research that will enhance our understanding of the vitally important role that food plays in cultural identities and the appreciation and promotion of local and regional traditions. Gastronomic heritages - and the associated issues of rural and regional development - are truly interdisciplinary subjects that require appreciation of history, art, landscapes, environmental conservation and social structures.
This project is designed to produce the following outcomes, which includes the direct transfer of study findings to SME's and policymakers:
? Reports on how local markets can be used to preserve and sustain local producers, while maintaining local identity.
? A blueprint for the development of regional gastronomic initiatives that involve SMEs, public bodies and destination marketing organisations.
? A toolkit on how SMEs can communicate the importance of landscapes and traditions through 'narratives'.
? Results synthesised into appropriate documentation and presented to policymakers, to develop a better understanding of how gastro-tourism can contribute to economic development and increased understanding and preservation of gastronomic cultural heritage.

With regards to the transfer of knowledge to SMEs, and communities, an understanding of the following general ideas will have utility and value for entrepreneurial and community development and regional policy development:
? Measures to best preserve/protect local gastronomic heritage and distinction.
? What is unique/important about local/regional gastronomy and how it can contribute to sustainable community/tourism development, promoting the local area as a gastronomic destination.
? The realization of how food heritage, through narratives about the gastronomic 'journey', from the sea or land to the consumer, can create memorable, and saleable, touristic experiences.
The high-value, trans-national tools that the project partners will disseminate to SMEs in the short- to medium-term will include:
? A report on how gastronomy can be linked effectively to the wider landscape in the development of individual and clustered packages of gastronomic experiences.
? A toolkit on how SMEs, and other players, can a) communicate the importance of landscapes and traditions through 'narratives', b) create more effective and interactive media for educating and informing the local public, and c) create better promotional materials.
? A written report of gastronomic businesses can develop and use cultural e-itineraries that aid the promotion of regional gastronomic products and engender greater understanding of its role in the preservation of traditions.
? A blueprint for the development of regional gastronomic initiatives that involve SMEs, public bodies and destination marketing organisations, for example, in the development of engaging and inspiring campaigns that foster sustainable community and tourism development.
? A report on how regional and local markets can be used to preserve and sustain local producers, through increased tourism activity, while maintaining local identity, including examples of event, such as children's cooking courses and tasting demonstrations. Allied to this would be a better understanding of how to strengthen 'regional identity' through greater knowledge of gastronomic culture as community food experiences.
In terms of influencing policy makers, the results of each regional case study, the literature review and trans-national exchange of case study findings and regional good practice will enable each partner to have a better understanding of how gastro-tourism can contribute to economic development, through increased tourism and sustainable agro-food businesses, and increased knowledge and understanding of gastronomic cultural heritage. At the regional level these results will be synthesised into appropriate documentation and presented directly to appropriate regional and national policymakers. The aim is to work with these organisations to ensure that there is greater recognition, and greater account is taken, of this sector, and these aforementioned businesses, in strategic decisions and policy documents and through appropriate levels of support, in both financial terms and through marketing for example.