Italia-Croatia

Introduction

AltRoute – Alternative Tourism Paths brings together partners from Croatia and Italy to explore new approaches to sustainable tourism in small and peripheral communities. The project builds on local enogastronomic traditions, cultural and natural heritage, community knowledge and local production, connecting them through the concept “from producer to table and beyond”.

Through stakeholder involvement, joint analysis, thematic workshops, pilot festivals, youth activities and the development of alternative tourism itineraries, AltRoute aims to support more sustainable tourism development while strengthening cooperation and knowledge exchange across the Italy–Croatia cross-border area.

Exploring Local Potential and Common Opportunities for Alternative Tourism

During the first phase of the AltRoute project, all project partners carried out local stakeholder consultations to explore the characteristics, resources, challenges and tourism potential of their territories.
The consultations provided valuable insights into local food and production, traditional knowledge, cultural and natural heritage, existing initiatives, community involvement and opportunities for alternative and sustainable tourism development.
Based on these findings, each partner prepared a territorial SWOT analysis. The four territorial analyses were subsequently compared at cross-border level through the AltRoute Joint Comparative SWOT Analysis, identifying recurring patterns, complementary assets, shared challenges and common opportunities across the partner territories.

The comparative analysis confirmed that the AltRoute territories have a strong common basis for the development of alternative tourism paths. Despite their different territorial characteristics, they share valuable assets such as local food and production, traditional knowledge, natural and cultural heritage, active local stakeholders and existing local initiatives. The analysis also showed that the main opportunity lies in better connecting these existing resources into authentic, visible and sustainable tourism experiences, while preserving the distinctive identity of each territory.
These shared strengths and complementary characteristics provide a solid foundation for the subsequent development of the joint AltRoute Strategy and alternative tourism itineraries.

Creating Alternative Tourism Itineraries

Sharing Traditional Knowledge through Thematic Workshops

AltRoute thematic workshops are designed to support the exchange and transmission of traditional knowledge and practices related to local food, production, cooking and the sustainable use of local resources.
The workshops bring together local knowledge holders, producers, chefs, craftspeople, community members and other participants through practical and participatory activities.
Three thematic areas guide the activities: traditional food and drink production, zero-waste approaches and souvenirs, and traditional cooking. Storytelling and hands-on learning support the transfer of knowledge between generations while strengthening awareness of local heritage.
 

Testing Alternative Tourism Experiences through Pilot Enogastronomic Festivals

Pilot enogastronomic festivals provide an opportunity to test the AltRoute approach directly within local communities.

Through local food and products, live demonstrations, workshops, storytelling, traditional knowledge and community participation, the festivals connect enogastronomic heritage with wider cultural and tourism experiences.

Pilot activities take place in the partner territories of Saint Peter in The Forest, San Leonardo and Jasenice. The experiences and feedback collected through the pilot actions will contribute to the joint evaluation of the tested approaches.

Evaluation results will be added following completion of the relevant project activities.

Engaging Young People and Supporting Intergenerational Knowledge Transfer

Communication

In this section, you can explore a collection of our project materials, including promotional materials and other resources developed within the AltRoute project. These materials provide further insight into the project’s activities, objectives and results, highlighting our commitment to the preservation and valorisation of traditional enogastronomic and cultural heritage, the development of alternative and sustainable tourism experiences, and the promotion of cross-border cooperation between local communities in Italy and Croatia.