“THE PROJECT H ERODOT. TOURISM USES OF THE HISTORIC ENVIRONMENT. KNOW-HOW TRANSFER AND QUALITY MANAGEMENT PRACTICES AT REGIONAL LEVEL.” A COLLABORATIVE NETWORK TO PROMOTE REGIONAL IDENTITIES AND CULTURAL HERITAGE. Dorothea Papathanassiou-Zuhrt University of the Aegean, Research Unit 30 Voulgaroktonou Street, 82100, Athens, Greece, e-mail: dzuhrt@aegean.gr Antonino Failla Universita degli studii di Catania Scuola Superiore, Via San Nullo 5/i 95123 Catania, e-mail: anfail@unict.it ABSTRACT HERODOT, a transnational collaborative knowledge network between Greece and Italy, funded by C.I.P. Archimed IIIB, aims to promote the Historic Environment as an agent for tourism by managing information with tourism value in virtual and in situ environments and by applying communication policies with the public in recreational learning environments. HERODOT pioneers a new form of co-operation between academic research and local level actors; it promotes cross-sectoral synergies in the Project’s intervention area, motivates entrepreneurial innovation and disseminates quality management practices at local level. Tourism involved agents are provided with vocational skills in tourism planning, heritage management and interpretation. Key words: HERODOT, Historic Environment, collaborative knowledge network, heritage management, tourism planning INTRODUCTION The Historic Environment -natural, tangible and spiritual- is commonly recognized as the major capital for sustainable heritage tourism. Still in many cases it remains unrecognized. Due to a massive employment seeking exodus in post-war central-western Europe, rural areas in Italy and Greece have been demographically depopulated and socio-economically degraded. Contemporary communities are detached from local history suffering a severe cultural discontinuity, especially obvious in the attitude of younger generations and repatriated populations. Local authorities on the other hand may not possess competencies to effectively care for the Historic Environment. Occasionally local communities whish to preserve threatened resources and are frustrated if central governance consider them below state-level-importance and therefore ineligible for protection and funding. More often the Historic Environment is in local eyes ordinary to the point of contempt, whereas the same environment may be in state and specialist eyes priceless and unique. Moreover the value of the Historic Environment and the character of income-generating heritage resources remains unknown to many communities exactly because resource-inherent values are strongly ciphered, correlating to special technical or historical reference points and not to the language of the locals. Recognising the necessity to investigate widespread shortcomings and factors of success for the valorisation of the Historic Environment at local and regional level, HERODOT, a transnational collaborative knowledge network between Greece and Italy, funded by C.I.P. Archimed IIIB, aims to promote the Historic Environment as an agent for tourism through the dissemination of best practices in the field of heritage management and tourism planning. The major planning task is to convert a range of diverse historic environments within the Project’s spatial intervention area into powerful heritage tourism attractors with acknowledged market value and sustainable uses. 10 partners from Italy and Greece representing academic institutions, local authorities and various other interested parties related to tourism, the cultural industries and cultural operators at local level share commonly developed planning tools. PROJECT SCOPE A primary goal was to build a collaborative knowledge Network for effectively managing the Historic Environment and serve heritage and tourism. The implementation of final deliverables, e.g. planning tools, e- library, training and pilot projects directly result experience exchange, intense know-how transfer and active participation. Partners share knowledge through the participation at transnational workshops and the use of commonly developed planning tools and media. Equally important was to present information with tourism value based on human cognitive architecture. This approach enables cultural operators to produce and visitors to consume top-quality first hand experiences.