Pilot Project Sutrio-Crafts, "Progetto pilota Sutrio-Crafts"

Best Practice

Topics

• Regional value added
• Governance capacity, Mobility, New forms of decision-making

Short description

The project is located within the Italian alpine perimeter, particularly in the north-western part of Friuli Venezia-Giulia Region called Carnia (Eastern Italian Alps).The Pilot Project Sutrio-Crafts has regenerated a whole village both expanding the sectors of tourism and traditional local handicraft through the creation of a new form of accomodation called "spread hotel", in which the tourist is not only the guest of the hotel but of the entire community, and renovating the old artisan shops. Endogenous resources: timber, traditional rural buildings, employees, traditional regional know how. Economic sectors: tourism, handicraft, trade.

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Project executive

The project executive is the Municipality of Sutrio, a little town of 1400 inhabitants located in the region called Carnia, in the eastern Italian Alps. The economy of Sutrio has been always based on the production of timber furnishings. Thanks to the implementation of the "spread hotel", the process of depopulation has decreased and more than 140 new beds are available. Albergo Borgo Soandri - Via Roma, 56 - 33020 Sutrio (UD), IT

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Participants

The project is based on the principles of participation: the local community, in particular the owners of the traditional unused estate now transformed into apartments ("spread hotel") and artisan shops. Furthermore, all the local enterpreneurs and the craftmen from the entire alpine bow have been involved. The entire local public authority has a key role in the project, but also behind the project there is the town councillor's to agriculture, nature, forest and mountain resources charismatic figure, who has been mayor for 15 years and who has supported many projects of sustainable development. The local public authority worked with the co-operation of the local community, starting thus a participatory process. The participants can identify with the project and they ask for new initiatives.

Objectives

a) To regenerate the economy through the integration between handicraft and tourism; b) to preserve the cultural heritage of the alpine traditional handicraft and to promote the transfer of knowledge and know how from the elderly to the young people; c) to create a micro-economy in order to better the quality of life of the alpine population; d) to stop the process of depopulation; e) to make the public opinion aware of the important economic and social role played by handicraft; f) to create new job opportunities in order to reduce the commuter's movement downstream.

Activities

1. Activation of the participatory process and involvement of the population in the development programme of the town; 2. implementation of hotel accomodations based on the principles of sustainable development and which aims at the renovation of the existing real estate, avoiding by this way new buildings; 3. development of a network of accomodation units and centralized management of the tourist offer; 4. reactivation of the handicraft shops, directly managed by the resident craftsmen, for the production, exposition and sale of goods; 5. organization of know-how exchanges with the craftsmen coming from the entire alpine bow; 6. testing of didactic tours and organization of touristic activities based on the local handicraft; 7. organization of thematic events and festivals based on handicraft and gastronomy called "The Magic of Wood" and "Villages and Christmas cribs".

Process

The pilot project is part of the major Iterreg IIIB Alpine Space project and, at the same time, it includes another local project for the creation of the so called "Spread Hotel" model. The Interreg project called Crafts is in its final phase and it will be finished on the 1th of December 2005. A further phase of dissemination of the results until the conclusion of the Interreg IIIB Programme has been scheduled. The activities scheduled in this phase are related to the participation to local, national and internatoinal workshops during which the results of the project will be presented. As for the methodology adopted, it is necessary to distinguish between the two different levels of the project. On the national level, the activities have been constantly concerted between the partners through the Piloting Committee, which included the delegates of the regions partners. Different work-teams on specific objectives supported the Piloting Committee. On the local level, the participatory methodology has been applied through the involvement of the public authority, the craftsmen and the population in workshops and information campaign.

Results

1.Light increase of population; 2. creation of 140 new beds through the so called "Spread Hotel": the rooms are located in the village and the services for the tourists are the same of those for the local population (restaurants, shops etc.), with a common reception where to check in and check out; 3. renovation of 8 handicraft shops in which the craftsmen can also organize workshops for the tourists or for other craftsmen and in which will be soon opened permanent exhibitions of handicraft goods; 4. 9 commercial and public exercises have been renovated and opened again; 5. renovation of the urban fittings by initiative of the city council. The specific relevance of the results for the Alps stays in the increase of the population, even if this has been light and not statistically significant already.

Evaluation

The project has not been evaluated yet.

Difficulties

The project has been approved in the first call for proposal. This has caused some difficulties concerning the experimentation of new administrative procedures both for the accomplishers of the programme and for those of the project. This situation has been resolved through a constant cooperation between the national and international partners. Futher on, a common lack of knowledge concerning the English language has caused many problems of understanding between the partners, both Italian and foreign. This caused a general impoverishment in the quality of experts' work. In order to avoid this kind of problem, it would be helpful to involve interpreters in the whole process. On the contrary, craftsmen of different nationalities did not need any interpreter thanks to their skill.

Budget

The project has been financed by the EU initiative Interreg IIIB - Alpine Space - with 1.929.000 euro in total, the Pilot Project Sutrio-Crafts has been financed by the Friuli Venezia-Giulia Region with 355.000,00 euro. (Euro)

Financial backer

The pilot project includes the initiative called "Spread Hotel", financed with the EU funds 5B and Obbiettivo 2 and with a 50% co-participation of private investors, who have renovated the buildings and payd for the legal costs.

Source of information

Competition

Participant at the 2005 Future in the Alps competition

Project executive as above

Contact person as above

Comments

Impact on nature and environment

The project contributes towards preserving nature and environment through the renovation of the local rural architecture, avoiding by this way the building of new structures characterized by a negative impact on landscape. This can be quantified through the significant number of renovated estates: 140 new beds, 8 handicrafts shops, 9 commercial and public buildings.

Economic value added

It is difficult to quantify the regional value added of the project, but it could be useful to compare the situation of the village before the project and after the project has been implemented: -before the project: decrease of population; recession of the handicraft sector, on which the local economy was based, starting from 1980; closing down of handicraft shops, restaurants, shops, hotels; stagnation of both private and public investments; decrease of per capita incomes; abandonment of farming activities. -after the project: the number of inhabitants has slightly increased; 140 new beds have been created through the methodology of "Spread Hotel"; 8 handicraft shops have been completely renovated and reactivated; there are no vacant flats; the population is fully employed; the entire village has been transformed in a museum "en plein air", with guided didactic tours. High potential to keep people in the region. Multiplier effects in the tourism sector.

Socio-cultural value added

The project provides a favourable impact on society and culture since it is based on the defense of the local cultural heritage through the renovation of typical rural buildings and through the diffusion of the traditional handicraft know-how. The impact of this socio-cultural value added can be quantified through the numebr of buildings, both private and public, that have been renovated (about 20). The project has risen in the young people awareness about the potential of their territory, convincing them non to abandon it and changing their opinion about handicraft from negative into positive. Job opportunities are equally distributed among both genders and aim to generation turnover.

Innovative content

The main innovative contents of the project have been both the idea of renovating the majority of buildings to transform them into tourists accomodations, instead of building new hotels that could have had a very high impact on the environment and landscape, and to involve in this process the whole local community, giving to it the possibility to make important decisions about its future. Futher on, integrated development policies have been preferred instead of sector development policies.

Good governance

The project is based on the integrated management of structures, services, public and commercial exercises. The whole local community has been transformed into an "enterprise", which agrees on and partecipates to a general development programme. The community is regularly invited to attend meetings during which the participatory methodology is put into practice.

PR impact

The results dissemination has been started only recently both through the institutional information regional, national and european channels and through the organization of meetings and visits, during which stakeholders coming from other european regions can learn and experiment the methodology contained in the project in order to apply it in their own territory. In 12 months 7 foreign delegations have come to visits the village.

Multiplier effect / networking

The project has risen a high interest but, since it is still in progress, its multiplier effect could be better evaluated and quantified in the next months, after the phase of results dissemination. The project brought to new partneships linked to the elaboration of new projects proposal to be presented in the Interreg IIIB Cadses Initiative and of smaller projects to be presented in the Rfo Interreg IIIC Initiative, which is now being evaluated.

Transferability

The model is easily appliable to any mountain or rural territory with a tourist, or agriculture or handicraft vocation. The methodology of the "Spread Hotel" supports and implements the co-operation and partnership between different economic sectors, among which one will be the pulling one, while preserving nature and envirnoment and proposing an example of "slow tourism". The involvement and commitment both of the local public authority and of the local community will be the key factors for the project success.

Further information