North Hunt

1. North Hunt Sustainable hunting tourism – business opportunity in Northern Europe

2. Hunting tourism is a profitable business in Central Europe  Why could it not also be that in the northern parts of Europe?

3. What is hunting tourism? • Domestic and foreign tourism relating primarily to hunting activities. • Domestic tourism is an activity, in which the people travel within their country, but to the location outside of their immediate residentialarea. • The main hunting tourism types in Northern countries: • domestic tourists, typically very independent • foreign tourists, the trip organised via hunting tourism company, hunting association or other tourism actors.

4. Why hunting toursim should be promoted? • Increasing need to develop new sustainable and competitive rural businesses in peripheral regions of Northern Europe • In tourism there is a need to develop new, off season activities based on local strengths to ensure the sustainability of rural tourism companies. • Hunting tourism has been identified as one tourism sector that generated the benefits especially to the rural areas (local knowledge needed, labour-intensive) • Hunting tourism is based especially on natural strengths and culture of northern areas • Ageing of local hunters in rural areas is causing growing ecological potential for hunting • .

5. Relevancy of the project • Huntingtourism is still a littleknown and under-developedsector in mostNorthernEuropeancountries • In developinghuntingtourism, the mostimportantaspect is sustainability (economical, ecological and social) • The main barriers for the business development: • Lack of information • Lack of feasible business models • Lack of co-operationwithin the sector and withrelatedsectors (e.g. tourismsector in general)

6. Relevancy of the project In order to support the decisionmaking and development of the sector, there is a need to: • get a realistic overview of the future potential of hunting tourism in Northern Europe: potential and frame conditions • collect together the scattered and limited information on the sector and combine it in order to develop the best practises  transnational approach provides sufficient knowledge base • stress the sustainability point of view in the hunting tourism development and as a result improve the social acceptance of new and developing businesses • create the networks to support and enhance the business and product development focusing to customer orientation

7. The project area

8. OBJECTIVES The overall objective of the project is to support the development of sustainable hunting tourism that will diversify the economic activity of peripheral regions in Northern Europe.

9. OBJECTIVES To be able to reach the overall objective, the project has 6 sub-objectives, which are to: • Develop and enhance sustainable and competitive business concepts that will meet the needs of selected customer groups and are based on hunting cultures of Northern Europe. • Develop the operational environment of hunting tourism by reducing the obstacles for the entrepreneurship and lowering the risk and threshold for start up companies in the sector without jeopardising the ecological and social sustainability. • Strengthen the co-operation between different interest groups (SMEs, landowners, administration, marketing operators, local communities and education sector) in developing hunting tourism nationally and transnationally

10. OBJECTIVES • Strengthen the connections between actors in the hunting and tourism sectors nationally and transnationally • Evaluate the possibilities for cross-country co-operation to develop a ‘Northern brand’ for sustainable hunting tourism • Create and analyse knowledge required in directing future rural development and hunting in Northern Periphery area. The project activities are designed to contribute to these objectives in a concrete level.

11. The project has three different types of activities Practical development Information collection for practical development Developing the operational environment of hunting tourism OBJECTIVES

12. THE WP-STRUCTURE The project’s structure is as follows: • WP1 Management, coordination and communication (includes management, dissemination and communication and evaluation) • WP2 The attitude environment and social framework related to hunting tourism  • WP3 Objective information to support SME and operational environment development • WP3 Task 1 Sales organisation survey  • WP3 Task 2 Monitoring models  • WP3 Task 3 Economical potential of hunting tourism  

13. THE WP-STRUCTURE • WP4 SME and operational environment development • WP4.1 Professional entrepreneurs in joint action • WP4.2 Influencing to the operational environment  • WP5 Training material and start up-companies

14. AFTER the North Hunt-projectthereshouldbeavailable: • Information gathering: • Objective knowledge on the present situation, potential and development strategies of northern hunting tourism • Analyses of good practices and models for business consepts of hunting tourism in different institutional settings • Potential analyses, criteria framework and possible development plan for ”Northern hunting tourism brand” • Knowledge on the potential customer groups of northern hunting tourism • Better knowledge about the social acceptability of hunting tourism • Education material for the use of the sector

15. AFTER the North Hunt-projectthereshouldbeavailable: • Practical development: • International and national networks of hunting tourism actors and entrepreneurs to continue the utilisation of the results and tools for them • Improved knowledgebase of the companies in the sector and new and improved hunting tourism products • Cross-country marketing co-operation between different hunting tourism networks and SMEs • New innovative hunting tourism products based on sustainability • Pilot courses based on the education material collected in the project

16. AFTER the North Hunt-projectthereshouldbeavailable: • Development of the operational environment of hunting tourism: • Common understanding on sustainable nordic hunting tourism between different actors • Better understanding on the frame conditions of hunting tourism in different institutional settings • Stronger connection between tourism and hunting actors • Objective information and best practise examples provided to stakeholders to support decision making in different levels • Complex committed network to develop the sector further based on the common understanding between different stakeholders.

17. FINLAND University of Helsinki, Institute for Rural Research and training (project co-ordinator) www.helsinki.fi/ruralia Haapavesi Vocational School, www.hao.fi SWEDEN Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Umeå www.slu.se Contact persons: Director Sami Kurki Project manager Anne Matilainen Project planner Susanna Keskinarkaus Project manager Juha Rutanen Contact persons: Principal Erkki Juola Project manager Markus Muuttola Contact persons: Extension specialist Göran Sjöberg Associated researcher Frederik Dahl Professor Göran Ericsson The projectpartnership

18. SWEDEN Rural Economy Development (RED) www.hush.se/bd ICELAND The Research Centre of the University of Akureyri www.unak.is Contact persons: Advisor Håkan Gyllbring Advisor Mats Andersson Director Jan-Olof Puranen Contact persons: Researcher Hjördis Sigursteinsdóttir Researcher Lára Guðmundsdóttir

19. ICELAND Icelandic Tourism Research Centre www.fmsi.is Environment and Food Agency of Iceland www.ust.is Contact persons: Director Edward Huijbens Researcher Eyrún J. Bjarnadóttir Contact person: Divisional manager Bjarni Pálsson

20. SCOTLAND Macaulay Institute www.macaulay.ac.uk University of Aberdeen www.abdn.ac.uk CANADA Newfounland and Labrador Outfitters Association www.nloa.ca Contact person: Dr Simon Thirgood Dr Stefano Fiorini Dr Bill Slee Contact person: Reader Colin J. Hunter Contact person: Dr. John Hull

21. Further information: www.north-hunt.org