Over the past few months, the tourism action plan of the Via Carpatia European Grouping for Territorial Cooperation (EGTC), a partnership between the counties of Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén and Košice, has been continuously refined. After the first meeting on 22 February 2024, the second action plan partner meeting took place on 15 April 2024, organised by the EGTC.

The meeting, held in the Bárány Restaurant next to the Castle of Edelény, was (among others) a step towards finalising the action plan. At this second meeting, the project partners had another consultation with EGTC staff to better understand and integrate the equestrian project elements necessary for the successful preparation of the proposal and the implementation of the project package. The meeting was also attended by János Lóska, president of the Hungarian Equestrian Tourism Association, an equestrian expert and the main compiler of the education part of the action plan.

At the beginning of the meeting, Julianna Máté, director of the EGTC, informed the participants about the call for action plans and the reduction of the previous two-round selection method to a one-round solution. As a consequence, it is no longer only a strategic document that has to be prepared in the first round for action plans, but the complete application file, broken down to projects.

This was followed by the main topic of the meeting: the discussion of the document previously sent to the project partners, which contained the most important issues that needed to be clarified in order to strengthen the equestrian content of the application. The eight questions, which mainly concerned the equestrian service providers in the region, their services (e.g. riding programmes, carriage driving), human factors, infrastructure, horse stock and professional training needs, were discussed with all partners present by János Lóska and the EGTC.

Many useful contributions, new information, as well as professional feedback and advice were given at the meeting. It was noted that there is a need to place more emphasis on the procurement of equestrian equipment (e.g. saddles, bridles). It was also an important lesson that there were more partners and service providers in the region that could be involved and that the partners and venues could develop a complementary and reinforcing range of services. The potential of cluster cooperation was also raised, in which the EGTC could play a key role. This could guarantee the right professional and human capital, networking, coordinated horse keeping, breeding, riding and training, the provision of joint tourism packages and the subsequent autonomous and sustainable operation.