The history of castles in the county Vas is closely linked to the history of castles in Pomurje. The EXP Castles project is based on the fact that the cross-border region is rich in common hist. assets and cult.heritage, and that there are important hist. links between castles and untapped potential for cross-border cooperation. Most of the castles involved have been linked in one way or another in the past. Either they were owned by the same noble family, or they were part of the same defence chain, or they traded with each other. Through the project we will explore and re-establish these links, which may have been somewhat forgotten, but with a common tourism offer and a common sustainable strategy for the future as the connecting element.

Cult.heritage is an important part of the tourism offer of both countries. The diversified and innovative integration of cult. heritage into the tourism offer of a region or a country promotes the active use of heritage and, through the active use of heritage, improves society’s attitude towards its holistic conservation. As castles are already considered magnets in their own right, attracting many visitors to the region, the project will link and build on the castle offer by including lesser-known rural areas and local tourism providers, thus offering tourists an attractive and integrated cross-border tourism experience. At the same time, the project aims to extend, upgrade and integrate the offer of the castles and, through a common tourism product and joint promotion, to contribute to greater visibility and better tourism positioning.

The main focus is on the development and promotion of a common tourism product, EXP Castles, which will include attractive tourist experiences. The new EXP Castles tourism product will further enrich the tourism offer of the cross-border region and have a positive impact on its economic development. The project aims to target visitors in a more sustainable and balanced seasonal and locational way through a common visitor orientation concept. It aims to direct them to lesser-known tourist locations in the countryside with natural values and cultural assets around castles and manor houses that are worth visiting, and to involve local tourism operators in the offer. Through project cooperation and project activities, the improvement of the cross-border tourism offer will be promoted by including attractions in lesser-known areas, raising awareness of the importance, value and further development of cult.heritage, integrating different tourism offers with cross-border relevance and improving cross-border accessibility of tourist attractions. Based on the identified cross-border criteria and models to better guide the flow of visitors, a pilot model for a sustainable and balanced distribution of visitors will be developed and tested, comprising 2 pilot measures for a more sustainable and balanced distribution of visitors in terms of location and seasonality: the Castle EXPlore – a tourist experience based on gamification and the Castle EXPerience based on (extra)seasonal events. In this way, the project aims to ensure that the cross-border region is explored, discovered and learnt about in an experiential way.

The project also aims to place the established network of castles on the European map and to increase their visibility at European level. The aim is to connect the castles included in the EXP Castles network to the cross-border Castle Road network, which currently connects Slovenian, Austrian and Croatian castles, and thus to create a unique, cult. and histor. significant cultural route of European importance. The project will seek to achieve the latter either by preparing an application for the Cultural Route of the Council of Europe title, or an application for the Europa Nostra Prize, or an application for inclusion in the Europa Nostra network, or similar.

The EXP Castles project builds on networking, cooperation, promotion, information and awareness-raising. Residents and visitors to the cross-border region will be informed about the new EXP Castles tourism offer, made aware of the value and importance of their shared cult.heritage and guided in a more sustainable and balanced way. Local, regional and national authorities, interested professionals, businesses and other stakeholders will be informed about ways and approaches of staging cultural heritage for tourism purposes, raised awareness about the value and importance of shared cult.heritage and encouraged to connect and network across borders.

Common criteria for sustainable cooperation and a common strategy for the future will ensure the sustainability and transferability of project results to other similar initiatives.

Castles, mansions and other hist. fortifications are living witnesses of times gone by. The EXP Castles project will build on the foundations of the common past of the cross-border area between Slovenia and Hungary to create common bridges to the future.

Project end date:

30.6.2027