The Municipality of Struga and the Municipality of Pogradec are neighboring municipalities, divided by the border between North Macedonia and Albania. They are both part of the Lake Ohrid region, known as one of the oldest and deepest lakes in Europe, surrounded by mountains.
Despite the touristic potential of these two municipalities, there is a lack of services and trained touristic service providers and weak presence in the touristic market place and lack of an integrated management and promotion strategy of cultural and natural heritage and insufficient involvement of community actors, in both Municipalities of Struga and Pogradec. For this reasons, there is a need of joint management of common heritage sites through direct and constant involvement of local/regional stakeholders/experts.
The public authorities in these two municipalities should gain a deeper knowledge of the territories involved, thanks to the territorial mapping, as well as ingrowth incomes due to the establishment of a new management model. By developing the potential of tourism by promoting cultural heritage and values, the targeted sites themselves should benefit from a higher flow of tourist, impacting local economy. Through the best available means of promotion, digital mapping and web positioning, local, regional and world-wide public will be aware of the new touristic sites and content, so the economic growth assured through the self-sustainable models.
The aim of the Project COOLTOUR is to increase the joint touristic offer that will provide the new dimension to cultural tourism in area of these two municipalities, in line with national and local strategic documents; to develop and improve the infrastructure and the current situation which can offer occasional and short-term programmes, to turn to multi/stakeholders facilities users, offering a variety of cultural and innovative content during the whole year.