Kalitka starting conference resulted in the inclusion of the Republic of Karelia to the “Gastronomic map of Russia”

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The starting conference of the  "Kalitka" project was held on February 27 at the Karelian Research Center of RAS.

The conference devoted entirely to the topic of gastronomic tourism was held in the Republic of Karelia for the first time and attracted more than 150 participants from Joensuu and Petrozavodsk, Olonets, Sortavala, Belomorsk and other Karelian cities. These were experts in the field of tourism and catering, farmers and producers, scientists, lecturers and students.

Conference participants were welcomed by Olga Bakhmet, acting President of the KarRC RAS, Vasenius Tarmo, lecturer at the North Karelia Educational Consortium, Tatyana Morozova, director of the Institute of Economics of the KarRC of RAS, Ekaterina Biktimirova, head of the Tourism Department of the Republic of Karelia, Ekaterina Shapovalova, special guest, the author of the idea and the head of the federal project “Gastronomic Map of Russia”.

Paavo Raappana, project manager and specialist of the University of Applied Sciences Karelia (Joensuu, Finland) made a presentation on catering during international music festivals. Ekaterina Miettinen, representative of the Forgis Oy company (Joensuu, Finland), presented modern technologies for promoting tourist services. The speech of Ekaterina Shapovolova focused on the possibilities for the Karelian gastronomic businesses for participating in the events of the federal project “Gastronomic Map of Russia”. 

Participants of the conference had the opportunity to discuss topical issues, share experiences, and exchange views during the round tables “New formats of interaction between educational organizations and business for the development of gastronomic tourism”, “Local producers and restaurant business: the taste industry”, “Organization of the Republic of Karelia's participation in the federal project "Gastronomic Map of Russia". Local products (tea, trout, fish, cheese etc.) were presented at the exhibition and Karelian traditional tea-break.

One of the conference results is that a memorandum of cooperation on the development of gastronomic tourism was signed between the Tourism Department of the Republic of Karelia and NGO for the development of national tourism "AgroEkoTourism" at the XIV International Exhibition "Intourmarket-2019" on 9th of March.