A festival agency established recently in Kamyanets-Podilsky, Khmelnytsky Oblast, has begun securing sponsors to festivals scheduled to take place in this ancient city in 2007.
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According to the booklet, popularization of the city and support of the tourism development at the local level have resulted in increased number of visitors from 45,000 in 1999 to 200,000 in 2005 and to 225,000 in 2006 |
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Ratusha Executive Director Dmytro Nazarenko has nearly a ten-year experience in organizing festivals in Spain. “Everything that is the best in Europe we want not to copy but to adopt” |
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The Agency of Festivals “Ratusha” (“Town Hall”) executive director, Dmytro Nazarenko, told the LED Monitor on Friday that he travels around to inform potential sponsors of the events scheduled and make preliminary arrangements. There have been meetings with a number of companies. “We try to reach as many companies as possible,” he said and added that a few old sponsors have already confirmed their intent to continue collaboration with the city.
Mr. Nazarenko comes to the meetings with a booklet of commercial offers produced by Ratusha just before 2007. The booklet contains a 2007 festival schedule with a brief description of each event and detailed conditions for sponsoring it: how much a sponsor is expected to contribute and what the company will receive in exchange from the city.
City Rada PR Officer Tetyana Lyamenko, who is one of Ratusha founders, said the festival agency hurried to publish the booklet in order to familiarize prospective sponsors with the festival schedule before they have approved their budgets for the year. She said the schedule itself was largely developed by the city hall in collaboration with businesses. “The agency’s been just established [so it has not had enough time for the schedule development]. But among other things it’s established just to take over this function as well.”
The idea of establishing a festival agency belongs to Kamyanets-Podilsky Mayor Oleksandr Mazurchak, according to the PR officer. The issue was discussed for some half a year, and finally it was decided that it will be an NGO, not a commercial organization, because the entire community in the tourism-oriented city is interested in attraction of visitors.
Ms. Lyamenko cited just a few reasons behind the city’s intention to have the agency: to organize festivals and other similar events at a higher professional level, set down rules of the game with travel agencies, hoteliers, etc., and coordinate activities of various entities when holding a festival. “Our strategic goal is to popularize the city,” she also added.
In mid December 2006, the city hall invited about 50 relevant persons, including local businesspeople operating in tourism, representatives of the city government, and active citizens, to a meeting, which turned founding for Ratusha. The participants elected a board of 13 members, elected Deputy Mayor Oleh Demchuk the president of the agency, and defined criteria for competitive appointment of an executive director.
On December 30, the board selected the executive director of eight applicants, and on the last day of 2006 the agency was registered as a legal entity.
Businesspersons that are NGO members sponsor the festival agency, Ms. Lyamenko said. “We don’t take a dime from the city budget.”
Dmytro Nazarenko, 37, is not a novice in organizing festivals. “For nearly ten years, in summers, I’ve been working as one of organizers of two international folklore festivals in Spain: La Muestra de Teruel and Valle de Mena,” he reported.
His international activities promote Ukraine in general and Kamyanets-Podilsky in particular as a tourist destination. “Last year, I organized Podillya culture days as part of La Muestra de Teruel. The Kamyanets-Podilsky delegation numbered more than 100 persons, including children and adult dance groups, singers, craftsmen, etc.” His colleagues from Spain and from other festivals often visit him in Kamyanets-Podilsky, acquainting themselves with Ukraine, its folklore, its rites. “Everything that is the best in Europe we want not to copy but to adopt,” says Mr. Nazarenko.
With its medieval fortress on a rock encircled by a canyon, Kamyanets-Podilsky could not but lay emphasis on tourism as a leading activity of its community. The Economic Development Strategic Plan, which was worked out in the city in 2005 with assistance from the USAID LED project, also focuses on tourism as one of three critical issues. Establishment of Ratusha is in line with the goals set in the plan.
