Second secretary of embassy of Polish Republic in Ukraine, advisor on development Bronislav Zheshotarski, which came for a monitoring visit to a village Mykytyntsi in Kosivskyi district, Ivano-Frankivsk region, thinks that inhabitants of Mykytyntsi made the right start in the development of rural tourism. Mr. Zheshotarski recommends to continue development by informing tourists about recreation in Mykytyntsi and to cooperate with tourist networks and organizations. About this and other points Bronislav Zheshotarski spoke in a short interview.
What can you say about the project “Successful commune – successful village”, financed within the program of the Development Cooperation Department of the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2011?
It’s very interesting project, and I’m satisfied with it. Firstly, it started with creating the basis for developing green tourism, not for certification of green rural tourism, as often happens. It’s unreasonable to certificate the green rural tourism, if there is no basis for its development. Within this project, first of all, were created places for tourism recreation. The next stage of the development – is widening the tourism infrastructure. It’s great that village authorities want to continue activity in this field.
Besides that, this project, to my mind, was well documented and transparent. Additional component of this project was activation of the local commune, what gave a basis for further activities of the organizer of this project, which is OPORA in Kolomyia, and also the village commune itself. The idea of small granting - is made for organization of small communities, to let them taste success and victory. We only need to show that community is able to do something with their hands for little money.
Which basic recommendations would you give for future development of Mykytyntsi?
First of all—to continue. More propaganda in its best sense. It means, that they need to spread information of the project results between interested people, and here I mean tourists. They need to cooperate with tourism organizations, tourism networks. Concerning tourism networks, as far as I know, they already exist in Ivano-Frankivsk region, I mean tourist information centre in the very Ivano-Frankivsk.
It’s also necessary to spread information in Internet on the relevant web resources in foreign languages. English, maybe German, and for sure Polish, since a lot of Polish tourists rest here. The information could also be spread on German or polish sites. There are lots of forums, for example in Poland too, where tourists communicate. We also will try to put general information on our site. After all, it’s not our last meeting...