Last week, from Wednesday, 25th September to Friday, 27th September our project partnership met in Bad Radkersburg for the 4th Steering Committee meeting and Study visit. 

The aims of the meeting were:

• to confirm the AoE Bike Trail route,
• to present AoE Bike Trail organizational structure,
• to present criteria for the AoE Bike Trail product partners (accommodations etc.) and description of the process for development of AoE BT product partnership,
• to present the requirements for implementation of marketing strategy,
• to present the proposal of AoE BT product webpage,
• to agree on tasks for the next 6 months,
• and to visit the Amazon of Europe Bike Trail, tourism service providers and attractions in Bad Radkersburg. 

First two days were spent indoors, in the conference room of Vitalhotel der Parktherme Bad Radkersburg who hosted us. Workpackage leaders presented their work and discussed recent developments with the project partners, such as: 

- Marketing strategy and proposed structure of AoE BT product website (Zarja Šinkovec, Iskriva),

- Organizational structure and criteria for AoE BT product partners (Günter Mussnig, Trail Angels),

- Route implementation (Tibor Polgar, Westpannon),

- Nature-oriented trails (Stefanie Edelmüller, WWF Austria),

- Project management (Eva Batista, Iskriva),

- International Biking festival event reports and communication activities (Zarja Šinkovec, Iskriva). 

©Zarja Šinkovec

We are happy to say that the cycling route has been finalized and is ready for further implementation activities. 

©Zarja Šinkovec

After the meetings, the organizers Tourism board of Bad Radkersburg showed us around the old part of town, river Mura and thier River s´cool, that has been developed through another DTP project - coopMDD. 

©Zarja Šinkovec

On Friday the project partners explored the first stage of the future Amazon of Europe Bike Trail and discovered attractions that our future visitors will experience as well. We were lucky with the weather, so our spirits were even higher. 

©Zarja Šinkovec

The next SCOM meeting will be happening in February 2020, where we will hopefully have a lot more to report on.