EU’s Support of Sustainable Tourism Development in Belarus encourages international experts to visit Polotsk

Experts from Latvia, Spain and Greece have come to the historical city to launch joint work on the city’s brand, with Polotsk’s District Executive Committee.

The guests visited St. Sophia Cathedral, the Saviour Monastery of St. Yevfrosiniya, a complex of the former Jesuit College and other sites, noting that Polotsk residents support cultural heritage, while presenting such sites to tourists in an interesting way, via contemporary technologies and educational projects.

Besides focusing on Polotsk and the Polotsk District, the tourism development project features the Belovezhskaya Pushcha, and the Mstslavl and Naroch areas. In total, 1.6m Euros of international assistance has been allocated for the project, with 325,000 Euros being directly sent to Polotsk and the Polotsk District. The funds will be used to develop and promote strategies and marketing events, inspired by European practice.

Training seminars and press conferences are also planned, in addition to the creation of advertisements and special centres of tourist clusters. The formation of Polotsk’s territorial brand will crown all this activity, enabling greater attraction of tourists and, probably, investors. The project may enhance the tourist attractiveness of all facilities by at least 20 percent.

“Annually Polotsk museums are visited by around 240,000 people. For example, the Saviour Monastery of St. Yevfrosiniya has been visited by 41,506 people over the past 11 months of 2015. In our opinion, we could see more, so we need proposals from international experts regarding Polotsk’s international branding,” notes the chief specialist of the Education, Sports and Tourism Department at Polotsk’s District Executive Committee, Natalia Sinitsa.