CEDTENK and Karelia UAS arranged the second stakeholder workshop at Parppeinvaara cultural heritage site in Ilomantsi on the 5.4.2018. The aim of the workshop was to identify cultural and natural assets with potential for development as case studies. The assets needed be of interest to stakeholders to work on together, of additional value to the regions’ tourism product and service provisions, and needing significant work to develop.

Timo J. Hokkanen from CEDTENK gave the opening speech before stakeholders’ case study activity. He presented the results from first workshop, and short overview of the case study development through the SHAPE project. Project results on regional values and climate change were then presented briefly in order to give more insight to stakeholders on aspects to consider when thinking about the overall feasibility of the case studies they had in mind. Concurrently, Keijo Koskinen and Tarja Kupiainen from Karelia UAS attended discussions through their expertise in tourism entrepreneurship and research.

The stakeholders were placed into groups to brainstorm the case studies and their relevance for the region’s tourism development. The groups brought forth very interesting cases that strategically interlinked nature and culture tourism assets, regional strengths, and locations- and areas of expertise of Programme and Service Providers (PSPs). Lasse Okkonen and Timo summed up the process thereafter by presenting the SHAPE e-service development process and next steps; after which next meeting was mutually agreed. The workshop gathered altogether 21 persons, and the next meeting will take place in May.