Good practice:

Silver Economy: creation of cross-border cooperation

The citizens above fifty years old are often overlooked, even though their share of the overall population keeps growing. This is the problem that the studied practice is trying to address. The older generation represents a big opportunity as a customer base and also as a potential working force.
The practice tries to seize the opportunity in the region located close to the border between Slovakia and Hungary. The practice can be divided into two parts. The first part focuses on attracting businesses and organizations that produce products or services to people above the age of 50 and operate in border counties. Benefits such as new market and free marketing tool, B2C surface, where they can exhibit products, labour market tools, the possibility to be an exhibitor on an organized professional fair free of charge, printing a paper-based product catalogue and other were provided for the companies involved in the project. The exhibit put together the local companies from both countries who created the substance and local older population who were the visitors. The second part is aimed at educating people above the age of 50. The courses tried to enrich the lives of citizens by teaching them languages, technology skills, or other skills important for job hunting. The practice chose more standard and conventional communication tools. Some of the promotion tools include an exhibit and articles in local media, etc.

The total budget of the project was 334,236.80 €.

Over 120 companies took part in the exhibit, seeing it as an excellent way to gain new and free marketing tools and also potentially hire new employees. The vast number of local companies that decided to be a part of the project can be clearly seen as one of the most important results. Since one of the main goals was to bring together companies from both countries and citizens above fifty years old, the interest from both groups shows significant potential.

When addressing a specific group of people, it is necessary to focus on choosing the right marketing tools and offer some added value. The presented practice shows one of the possible ways of how to reach the silver generation and promote the most important changes in mobility for them.

The practice comes with a very unique proposal to achieve more sustainable economic and social development in any region. It is also very special in the selection of two main target groups: the silver generation and the local companies both provide important resources for one another and together they can help the economy grow. The practice can be used as an example of how to reach older people (silver generation) in case of promoting new sustainable transport solutions in a region. It also provides evidence of creating a space for meeting two target groups (silver generation and companies) to share their ideas, knowledge and resources. This also gives an idea of how to approach organising meetings with this generation, to create for them added value when proposing and promoting sustainable modes of transport.