All over the world, small tourism projects face several challenges, including financing, poor management, and the ability to stay sustainable. After conducting a survey among small projects in Umm Qais, Jordan, the EU-funded CROSSDEV project identified gaps and needs of the local tourism-related businesses and designed training sessions dedicated to address such needs.

The design of the training content was done in consultation with partners from the local community, and their demand was the need to improve the attractiveness of Umm Qais in general and their own individual business activities in particular, so to increase production and sales and to achieve a return that guarantees them continuity and the growth of their businesses.

The trainings provided by CROSSDEV to Umm Qais locals included a theoretical part and a field part. The trainees visited several successful tourist destinations and local projects in Amman and the surrounding areas and were briefed on their experiences and success stories.

In order to give Umm Qais tourism-related business a digital life, the CROSSDEV team is currently developing a website that gathers and promotes all local activities aimed at national and international tourists. To do so, the team collected data from each local project, such as overview, activities, services, contacts, pictures, and any other relevant information. They have also produced marketing materials for each business, both in print (like leaflets, banners or business cards) and digital (like social media pages). Also, for the first time in this area, a unified logo was designed for all tourism projects and products in Umm Qais, effectively creating a real local brand for the destination.

The new logo of Umm Qais, developed by CROSSDEV

The website, which is currently been finalised, includes information, maps, and pictures of each local business, as well as information about the four routes that were developed by CROSSDEV in cooperation with the locals: the cultural route, the health & spa route, the agro-tourism route and the eco & adventure route. The website will also be integrated with the CROSSDEV platform that is also currently under construction and that will include all five destinations developed by the project: Umm Qais and Aqaba in Jordan, Via Selinuntina in Italy, Jabal Moussa in Lebanon and the Palestinian Heritage Trail in Palestine.

The Umm Qais website will ensure the sustainability of what has been accomplished by CROSSDEV even after the end of the project: the newly developed Umm Qais network of local business owners will be trained on how to manage and maintain the website and to keep it running in the future.

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