On 1 March 2018, the conference ‘Modern Challenges for Rural Green Tourism in Ukraine: Legal, Educational, Organisational and Market Aspects’ was held in Kyiv. The conference was attended by more than 100 participants from 21 regions of Ukraine: representatives of the authorities, media, NGOs, educational institutions, owners of estates and enterprises interested in the development of rural green tourism in Ukraine.
The participants of the event discussed the most pressing issues for the development of rural green tourism: legislation in the field of rural green tourism, creation of rural green tourism standards, cluster economic self-organisation of local communities, use of the Internet platform for communication and information, improvement of the system of professional training and retraining of rural green tourism specialists.
The conference was organised by the All-Ukrainian NGO ‘Union for the Promotion of Rural Green Tourism in Ukraine’ with the support of the UNDP Ukraine project ‘Strengthening Business Associations of Small and Medium Enterprises’, which is being implemented with the financial support of the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) and the Agricultural and Rural Development Support Programme (Agrosilrozvytok) project, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
The purpose of the conference was to summarise the results of the project ‘Rural Green Tourism – from Disconnected Homesteads to Territorial Clusters’ and to discuss among stakeholders the most controversial issues related to the current state, problems and prospects for the development of rural green tourism in Ukraine, namely:
● discrimination against peasants engaged in small-scale food production and provision of rural green tourism services;
● the problem of legislative definition of the activities of rural owners and their family members in the provision of rural hospitality services in the field of rural green tourism (draft laws No. 2232a and No. 7400, on amendments to certain legislative acts of Ukraine in the field of tourism);
● development of systemic and acceptable standards of rural green tourism (rural hospitality) for both hosts and holidaymakers;
● cluster as a model for uniting dispersed rural green tourism estates;
● information and legal protection of owners of private peasant and farm households that provide rural green tourism services – members of the Union of RGT of Ukraine;
● modernisation of training programmes for workers and specialists in this area.
The discussions on these issues were attended by:
- Volodymyr Vasyliev, Chairman of the Board of the Union of Rural Green Tourism of Ukraine;
- Mykhailo Tovt Honorary Chairman of the Union of Rural Green Tourism of Ukraine, Senior Researcher at the V.M. Koretsky Institute of State and Law of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine;
- Vladlen Sysun, Coordinator of the UNDP project ‘Strengthening Business Associations of Small and Medium Enterprises’;
- Oleksandr Kaliberda, Head of the Agricultural Policy Unit of the USAID Rural and Agricultural Development Support Programme;
- Olena Gafurova, Member of the Board of the Union of NWT of Ukraine, Professor of the Academician V. Z. Yanchuk Chair of Agrarian, Land and Environmental Law at the National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine;
- Vasyl Brenzovych – Member of Parliament of Ukraine;
- Olena Borodina – Head of the Department of Economics and Policy of Agrarian Transformation of the Institute for Economics and Forecasting of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Corresponding Member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine;
- Svitlana Marchenko, Associate Professor of the Department of Land and Agrarian Law at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv;
- Yurii Zinko – Member of the Board of the Union of C&TCs of Ukraine, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Tourism of the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, Chief Expert Consultant on Categorisation of the NGO ‘Union of C&TCs of Ukraine’;
- Yulia Slyva, Associate Professor of the Department of Standardisation and Certification of Agricultural Products at the National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine;
- Vitalii Demian – manager of the ethnographic and ecological cluster ‘Boykivski Gazdy’, Lviv region;
- Oksana Kleban – manager of the agro-ecotourism cluster ‘Hospitable Boykivska Dolyna’, Ivano-Frankivsk region;
- Oleksandr Palariiev, project manager of the Frumushyka-Nova agro-ecological and recreational cluster, Odesa Oblast;
- Viacheslav Osadchyi, Head of the Department of Informatics and Cybernetics at the Bohdan Khmelnytskyi Melitopol State Pedagogical University;
- Tetiana Ishchenko, Acting Director of the State Institution ‘Scientific and Methodological Centre for Information and Analytical Support of Higher Education Institutions “Agroosvita”.
- Tetiana Kalna-Dubiuk, Head of the Department of Agricultural Consulting and Tourism at the National University of Life Sciences and Environmental Engineering of Ukraine;
- Olha Liubitseva, Head of the Department of Country Studies and Tourism at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv.
Discussing the issue of improving legislation in the field of rural green tourism, Vasyl Brenzovych, MP, focused on assessing the prospects for the adoption of Draft Laws 2232a and 7400, the Draft Law of Ukraine ‘On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine in the Field of Tourism’ and negatively assessed the changes to the draft laws introduced by the relevant committee of the Verkhovna Rada.
Olena Borodina, Head of the Department of Economics and Policy of Agrarian Transformation of the Institute for Economics and Forecasting of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Professor, Corresponding Member of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, expressed radical views on the problem of legislative regulation in the field of rural green tourism. She believes that it is necessary to completely change the legislation on rural green tourism, and not just make some changes.
‘I share the view that we really need to change all the legislation fundamentally. If we make any amendments to the law or changes, experience shows that it turns into an even bigger disaster for the provision of rural hospitality services. Therefore, although it is difficult, although it is costly and requires a lot of effort and time, it is necessary to develop a fundamentally new, fundamentally different legislation that regulates the activities of family farms and family estates in rural areas,’ Borodina said.
She noted that the Ukrainian legislative system has remained focused on large-scale production since independence and is still focused on large-scale production. ‘Rural tourism is not a tourist activity, but a continuation of the agricultural activities of rural estates. And all over the world, realising the importance of the family farming segment in rural areas and the fact that it is very difficult for them to survive only on agricultural activities, the state, through its measures and various economic levers, helps them diversify their activities in order to increase these incomes. So, rural green tourism is not a tourist activity, but the provision of hospitality services in rural areas. This is how it is seen in Europe, how it is seen in America, on all continents. Unfortunately, we have not come to this point, and any legislative changes are more focused on tourism and entrepreneurship,’ the scientist explained.
A separate discussion panel was dedicated to the issue of creating systemic standards for rural green tourism. Yuriy Zinko, Chief Expert Consultant on Categorisation of the Union for the Promotion of Rural Green Tourism, stressed that the existing voluntary categorisation programme ‘Ukrainian Hospitable Estate’ is a system of internal control of services and is designed to guarantee the quality and safety of rural green tourism services. The fundamental condition for the development of standards was their acceptability for both rural homestead owners and tourists. Currently, one of the main tasks of the Union is to create an all-Ukrainian network of categorised farmsteads.
The discussion on the problems and prospects of educational training of rural tourism specialists was informative. Tatiana Ishchenko, Acting Director of the Scientific and Methodological Centre for Information and Analytical Support of Higher Education Institutions ‘Agroosvita’, presented information on educational activities in the field of rural tourism. In particular, she drew attention to the fact that all agricultural educational institutions teach an integrated course on rural and ecological tourism, but there is a need to modernise the curriculum. ‘It is important to develop a standard for rural tourism curricula as elective courses in the training of bachelor’s degree specialists and a recommended set of courses for rural tourism majors in the training of masters,’ said Tetiana Ishchenko.
For the participants of the event, the EBA experts prepared reference and information materials on the topic of the conference, which provided general information on the essence and possibilities of implementing a cluster model in the field of rural green tourism, as well as an analysis of the training of rural tourism specialists in Ukraine.
All conference materials can be viewed at this link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1BEwyXbCKQk6ay_-TGLhiHBv-35VIgMf4?usp=sharing
The conference also featured the presentation of the brochure ‘Rural Green Tourism – from Disconnected Estates to Territorial Clusters’.
In addition, the event included the awarding of certificates of membership, certificates and marks of the Ukrainian Hospitable Estate categorisation and the signing of a Memorandum of Cooperation on the dissemination of the Ukrainian Hospitable Estate categorisation system between the Union for the Promotion of Rural Green Tourism in Ukraine (signed by the head of the Union, V. Vasyliev) and the Lviv Regional State Administration (signed by the head of the Department of Tourism and Resorts of the Lviv Regional State Administration, N. Tabaka).
A video recording of the conference is available here: https://www.ukrinform.ua/rubric-presshall/2410812-sucasni-vikliki-dla-silskogo-zelenogo-turizmu-ukraini.html
This activity was made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Rural and Agricultural Development Support Programme.
This activity was made possible with the support of the UNDP project ‘Strengthening Small and Medium Enterprises Business Associations’, which is implemented with the financial support of the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO).
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