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Celtic Authentic Niche Tourism Advancing the Atlantic Area | Select language |
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CANTATA is a 1.9 million Euro tourism development project funded through the Interreg IIIB Atlantic Area Programme and working in Denbighshire in North Wales in the UK; County Clare, on the West Coast of Ireland; Galicia, in North West Spain; Poher, in West Central Brittany, France and Montemor-o-Velho, in Western Portugal. Originally piloted in County Clare, Ireland, as the Live the Life scheme, it was recognised that tourism is a key economic driver in Europe but recent research indicated that visitors were becoming increasingly suspicious of mainstream marketing; they suffered from marketing overload and could be disappointed by their tourism experiences. Mainstream tourism drives the visitors to tourism ‘hot spots’ or ‘honey pots’ whereas CANTATA aims to move visitors from the ‘hot spots’ to more peripheral and under developed areas and deliver authentic and genuine visitor experiences, thus promoting and strengthening local distinctiveness. CANTATA will do this by assisting local tourism groups and businesses to help themselves and each other through capacity building workshops to build local knowledge, local distinctiveness, pride in the local tourism asset and ways of transmitting this welcome to visitors, and improving marketing at local level, improving local connectivity, tapping into national activities and cross national marketing where applicable. People are at the heart of CANTATA. The project is intended to foster a sense of pride within these local communities, pride in the region and in the way of life. This will communicate itself to the visitors in terms of a welcoming attitude and in-depth knowledge of the area, a confidence that what the area has to offer is of interest and value to the visitors.
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CANTATA Partners 
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