Coastal Uplands: Heritage & Tourism Project seeking participants

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Dear Community Member,
Coastal Uplands: Heritage and Tourism (CUPHAT) is a project seeking to work with local communities to showcase the cultural and natural heritage of the upland areas of the Cambrian Mountains and Preseli Hills in Wales, along with the Wicklow and Blackstairs Mountains in Ireland. The project is focused on developing sustainable and regenerative forms of tourism – in other words, tourism that is owned by and benefits local communities.An important part of the project is to create a tourism network within and between each of these areas. We are seeking as many individuals, organisations and businesses as possible to be a part of the network.

The network is an opportunity for a variety of stakeholders from the areas we are working with to:

• join together to learn from the experiences of other stakeholders and businesses,
  discuss the possibility of heritage-based tourism development within and between these upland areas,
•  enhance or add value to the existing tourism provision within their respective areas,
• consider how tourism development could help support communities and the environments in their respective areas.

We are seeking as many individuals, organisations and businesses as possible to be a part of the network including: the owners of cafes / restaurants / pubs; accommodation providers; food / beverage / craft producers; tour operators / heritage site operators / visitor attraction operators; local community / tourism development bodies; local councils, particularly their tourism branches and tourism supplier / support organisations.

If you would like to be part of the CUPHAT project network, please complete the Expression of Interest form, which you will find in the link below (it will take approximately five minutes to complete).

As a way of starting conversations between the stakeholders in the four areas, we are organising a series of local and wider project learning visits for network members. The first overseas visit will be held on 21-24 October 2022 and will see stakeholders travelling from the Wicklow and Blackstairs Mountains to visit the Cambrian Mountains and Preseli Hills to meet the corresponding Wales-based members of the network and to learn from their experience. A corresponding learning visit will take place in Spring, with the Wales-based stakeholders visiting the Irish areas.The cost of both trips be covered by the project.

In advance of the October trip to Wales local meetings will be held on the Ireland side and on the Welsh side to allow representatives from the two project areas in each country to meet and learn more about the project and the network.

These initial local meetings will take place on Monday 17th October at 7pm in the Orchard Centre, Killaveney, Tinahely, Co. Wicklow.

When completing the Expression of Interest form you will be asked to indicate if you would like to be considered for the overseas learning visits. On the basis of practicalities, we will only be able to accommodate representatives of 10 organisations or business from each of the four areas to partake in the learning visits. If the learning visits are oversubscribed, we will select representatives to ensure a good spread of stakeholders and types of engagement with tourism, as well as taking into consideration the reasons submitted for being a member of the network. You must be aged over 18 to attend the learning visits and have a valid passport for overseas travel.

Please click HERE to complete the Expression of Interest form. The deadline for submission is 18.00 on 11 October 2022, decisions about learning visit participants will be communicated to successful applicants by 12 October 2022.

If you have any questions or require further information please do not hesitate to contact us at any stage via cuphat@aber.ac.uk .

Thank you for your interest. We will be in contact with you soon.
Regards
Dr Arlene Crampsie, UCD School of Geography
Dr Christine Bonnin, UCD School of Geography
Dr Wyn Morris, AU Department of Geography & Earth Sciences