Tour.Com - Establishing Tourism-Competency-Centres in European border regions Background Tourism is an important economic factor in many European border regions, but often this asset is not exploited to its full potential. Many barriers still hamper access to tourist attractions on either side of the border; infrastructure, especially crossborder infrastructure, is poorly developed and bilingual tourist information is lacking. Four of the regions involved in Tour.com face precisely this problem. The neighbouring counties of Uecker-Randow (DE) and Police (PL), as well as Raciborz (PL) and Opava (CZ), are regions that are lagging structurally, with little experience in marketing their regions jointly, whereas the counties of Saarpfalz (DE) and Sarreguemines (FR) have a long tradition in cross-border tourism development. Consequently they have a great deal of know-how and experience to share. However, they lack an effective information and cooperation platform that would strengthen the cross-border network of tourism stakeholders. Overall objective The overall objective of this cooperation is to strengthen the regional economy of the participating regions by taking advantage of the knock-on effect of increasing tourist numbers. This will be achieved by stimulating cross-border tourism in the participating regions. Tour.com generates a pool of know-how and competencies in the field of cross-border tourism. This pool is then used to develop a concept and a handbook for the step-by-step establishment of cross-border Tourism Competency Centres. Two of these centres are being set up during the operation’s lifetime: one in the neighbour regions Uecker-Randow (DE) - Police (PL) and the other in Saarpfalz (DE) - Sarreguemines (FR). The tasks of these centres are, for example, to consult SMEs, associations and other tourist organisations on topics relating to cross-border tourism, stimulate networking of tourist agents, launch cross-border marketing activities and cross-border product development. They also stimulate the continuous exchange of experiences and know-how between all involved actors and launch common projects, e.g. sign posting and producing multilingual information material. Preparations are being made to transfer the concept of Tourism Competency Centres to the neighbour regions Raciborz (PL) - Opava (CZ) and to other border regions in Europe. In addition, a concept for an umbrella association for Tourism Competency Centres in Europe is being developed. Lead partner County of Uecker-Randow An der Kürassierkaserne 9 17309 Pasewalk GERMANY Contact person Volker Böhning Telephone: +49 3973255336 Fax: +49 3973255346 Email: landrat@lkuer.de Duration January 2004 - December 2006 Budget Total budget: 706 510 EUR ERDF contribution: 462 381 EUR More information can be found at www.tour-com.com