Summary of the South-Estonia Tourism Services Mentoring Programme

The South-Estonian Tourism Cluster in cooperation with Loovusait OÜ carried out a mentoring programme for South-Estonian tourism services “Tourism Services Development Sprint”. The mentoring programme consisted of joint meetings and individual work with your mentor. A total of 780 hours were invested by entrepreneurs in five events. During the meetings, they developed their service methodically with their mentor and learned from the experience of others.

The mentoring programme was given added value by the group mentoring format, which provided an impetus for closer cooperation and brainstorming between entrepreneurs from different regions of South Estonia.

The mentoring programme “Tourism services development sprint”, conducted by the Creative Village, was a part of the project “Development of region-specific products for South Estonia as a tourist destination”, which was part of the EAS “Destination development cooperation projects” competition. The competition was carried out under the action “Terms and conditions for the award of grants to support the management of the development of tourism products” (approved by the Minister of Foreign Trade and Entrepreneurship by Order No 15-0230 of 30.07.15).

The project involves tourism organisations and networks from Võru County (Setomaa), Valga County (Otepää and Valga municipalities), Põlva County, Jõgeva County (Jõgeva and Mustvee municipalities) and Tartu County. The direct beneficiaries of the project are tourism businesses and service providers in South Estonia. According to puhkaeestis.ee, the approximate number of service providers in the cooperation area is 80 in Jõgevamaa, 90 in Põlva County, 142 in Valga County, 250 in Võrumaa and 565 in Tartu County – a total of 1127.

The period of the project is 31.07.2021-31.10.2023 and the amount of the grant is 216 630 euros.