Good practice:

“Hand-Made Saale-Unstrut” – promotion of hand-made regional products from Burgenlandkreis

“Hand-Made Saale.Unstrut” combines regional products from traditional crafts, agriculture, the creative industries and the manufacturing sector and brings the producers behind them together in a strong regional network. It enables locals and guests to experience at first hand where all these magnificent products come from and how they are made. Do it yourself is the motto!
The initiative makes it possible for people to do something with their own hands through bookable offers. Like a weekend as a winegrower, a spectacular Racu ceramics event or a herbal cooking course.

Following activities are implemented: development of Brand design and handbook, purchase of an sales trailer for promotion and sale of products, purchase of promotion equipment like clothes, deckchairs and exhibition equipment, Content creation for social media and advertisements and events.

The idea was generated in a competition organized by „Metropolregion Mitteldeutschland“ and „Unternehmen Revier“ in 2018. By winning the competition, the Saale-Unstrut-Tourismus e.V. received the appropriate funding to implement this project.

The funding is provided as a seed capital; Marketing budget for 18 months. For the implementation one position of a project manager is financed. Total amount of Budget is 200.000 Euro.

Results achieved so far:
• About 20 signed „Handmacher“
• “hand-made” car
• constantly on the road to promote the project
• As well as a mobile shop concept for the ‚hand-maker‘
• Content Creation for 7 participants
• Growing community on social media
• Website with inspirations, links and contacts

It is quite hard to find the right partners for the realization of some visions (too expensive, not flexible enough, not suitable for the project)
Of course 2020 with all its challenges: Covid-19 brought a hard time for tourism and especially small business owners like the “Handmacher”;

The project has been presented during the SARURE Online Workshop in June 2020. It represents a good example for regions that have local produces in their rural regions and who want to combine economic promotion of theses businesses with promotion of tourism and improvement of attractiveness and image for the region.