Kuldiga District Municipality, Latvia

Main challenges related to cultural tourism

The main challenge is to boost Circular Cultural Tourism innovations, especially Augmented Reality solutions and tools. The AR tools planned to be developed within the project:

• AR GUIDE and navigation for Kuldiga city. AR guide app would allow users to scan cultural and historical landmarks, monuments, and geographical points of interest to view instant interactive digital information.
• AR cultural tourism MAP. Cities often offer touristic maps of the surrounding areas to help guide and inform guests during their visits. Similar hotels could use the actual map to reveal landmarks, famous constructions, and cultural monuments digitally popping out of the map in a realistic or artistic manner.
• AR art and Museums. Digital artists feature their art throughout the digital museums. Users could scan paintings and outdoor art murals to view, capture, and share the digitally hidden art on social media. It also allows tourists to learn more about the artworks and artists with a simple phone scan that could trigger audio guides, videos, text or a digital version of the artist himself explaining his masterpiece and personal story.
• Augment existing 3D Art. Cool monument, fountain, or architectural feature in town. The aim is to use Object e Scene AR Tracking technology to have digital augmentations attached to objects, sculptures, or the building structure itself.
• AR for restaurants and hotel dining. Digital representations of the 3D food menu or entertaining stories about the traditional artisan restaurant or hotel and the area. When visiting the restaurant, guests can point their phone’s viewfinder to enjoy a series of artistic styles digitally layered around cocktails and meals, brought to life through Image Tracking augmented reality technology for sustainable and circular cultural tourism.

Current strategic planning

We have updated two separate documents: culture as well as tourism development programs, both by 2021. The main objectives of the Kuldiga Culture Development Program 2021–2028 are:

• To identify and evaluate the existing creative industries and cultural environments of the municipality resources, including both cultural institute and organizational resources, offering a clear vision and solutions;
• Targeted planning of actions and investments, incl. the municipal budget for culture development; 
• To substantiate the attraction of all types of investments to culture and related industries, incl. foreign and domestic investment; 
• To promote the recognition of the cultural activities of the region in the regional, national and internationally