The fifth Interregional Learning Event took place on 9-10th October 2018 in Oudenaarde, East-Flanders, Belgium, hosted by the Economic Council for East-Flanders. The central theme of the event was “The diversification of tourism products and services to provide more customised packages”, since tourists demand products and services to be adjusted to their own specific needs and diversifying the offer and hereby customizing packages is a constant challenge.
The first day of the event (9th October), started with an opening session by a representative of the Economic Council of East-Flanders and Tourism East-Flanders. During the following workshop, project partners exchanged interesting Good Practices and discussed with the local stakeholders.
The event continued with a study visit to the Distillery Van Damme, Balegem, where a meeting was held regarding: a) the importance of regional products (and their European label and protection), b) hosting tourists in a traditional environment (B&B) and c) hostmanship and tourist information points. At the end of the first day of the ILE, a second study visit to the Castle of Leeuwergem took place where the partners had the opportunity to discuss regarding MICE tourism.
The second day of the event started with project management meeting on administrative, financial and communication issues. In the afternoon, more study visits took place, when the project partners visited a New tourist visitor and experience center in Ronse, a Beer city golf project, which is an innovative example of diversification of a tourist product, and a local brewery in Oudenaarde (Brewery Roman).
