Our aim was to prepare the region to welcome international visitors during the Olympic Games and to develop an exchange of visitors between Kent and Nord Pas-de-Calais. For that our objectives were to develop best knowledge of the destination and of the visitors by the businesses, to engage inhabitants in the tourism development of the region and the welcome scheme.

Activity 1 Come and Play. One joint website site www.greettheworld.com has been created and developed for the Games. Joint communication campaign to catch visitors in the region: advertising campaigns in London, Eurotunnel trains and port facilities, events guide in the regional press, 2 joint brochures, and communication actions for the sport teams. To develop joint communication tools, partners developed videos and photos library on sport and cultural events. Partners have been to 19 exhibitions to present the region. One major event was held in Paris Kent and Nord Pas-de-Calais greet the world in June 2012.
Activity 2: Three Big Day Out: 2 in each region (Nord Pas-de-Calais and Kent) and one common with exchange of local residents and one more in Kent in 2013. One network of greeters on both side with regular joint meetings. One hospitality guide, videos for good environmental practices for businesses were produced. There was a welcome scheme on the French and English side during the games. One businesses platform of exchange has been developed.
Activity 3: In this third activity, the actions were less jointed but built together and based on the common tools of the database and the website. On the French side, partners have analysis of the impact of a cultural event and communication campaign with the Trans-Manche companies by e-mail thanks to the joint website around two major cultural events: Lille Fantastic festival and opening of Louvre Lens. Nord Tourism has participated to a national campaign of France in England to promote the destination.
Communication: 3 major communication events during the project: One in Lille in 2010 during the Tourissima exhibition for the launch of the project, one in Brussels with a press conference about the project and the partnership and one in Strasbourg in 2012 at the Strasbourg European Council.

1. 16 exhibitions, one join logo, 2 promotional brochure on the Trans-Manche destination, 4 cross-border events guides promoted by advertising, one website, press relations. All these results contributed to improve the image of the cross-border destination as a cultural and sport destination. The aim of these results was to increase the number of visitors.
2. A welcome scheme during the games, a welcome businesses network and a welcome kit (sustainable videos, signalization, stickers, welcome guide...), a greeter network, opening attractions weekend for inhabitants, the participation of young English and French students which worked on the creative project along the game about Olympic value, a business and institutional professional platform for exchanges. All these results contributed to elaborate a very welcome region where professionals and inhabitants are involved in the increase of the touristic industry.
3. Model of economic impact of events, sport and cultural packages sailed thanks to an added campaign and to the website, customer data base. These results carried out all the activities developed in this project. People were come for Olympic games and have been solicited to come again thanks to adapted offers/packages, measured the efficacy of actions by the economic impact of events and tourist venue, opened on future actions that partners could develop.

The beneficiaries are: businesses, inhabitants and visitors. Businesses, partners provided 1. Sustainable good practices thanks to the videos. Aim to convince them of the necessity of sustainable offer. 2. Information and advices about international visitors to help them to improve their welcome (habits, food, interest themes, particular links with NPDC) 3. Training about quality and ICT 4. The business network helps us to mobilize partners who have had communication tools to be more visible 5. All marketing actions have been provided for the businesses (exhibitions, brochures, add, web, packages and commercialization). Concerning inhabitants: 1. pursuit of the development of the greeter’s networks. 2. meeting between the greeters networks 3. Huge rule of the greeters in the welcome scheme (they welcomed visitors in major access point as stations, ports and ships) 4. Opportunity to discover the cross-border attractions has helped inhabitants to become ambassadors.

Businesses: 1. sustainable good practices continue to be developed by businesses; moreover partners bring more and more ideas and tools to helps businesses 2. The welcome network is still exist - GREET THE WORLD is now a real brand for the destination and all businesses pursuit their efforts in this way (languages, signalization, special offers). Inhabitants: 1. the development of the greeter’s networks and their involvement in the events 2. The development of the interest of inhabitants for tourism with the creation of new ambassadors networks. 3. Visitors 1. The events development and promotion developed thanks to the project is now reinforcing. The success of events for visitors brings an important economic impact for the destination. In summarize, all actions developed in the project contribute to a better welcome for visitors.

The Big Day Out has enabled people to discover new attractions or destinations in the European area. The greeters’ network has generated a sense of pride for where they live, sharing knowledge with visitors and strong links with the network. Concerning the businesses, the training in quality and sustainability and to the international customer knowledge contributed to the development of their offer to meet the demands of visitors. This project has contributed to the profile of the destination.

The real added value of doing this cross-border project consisted in the creation of the welcome scheme for the games. Partners have worked together to prepare this event by developing the communication of the common destination and by training local residents and businesses to welcome the world. Without this cross-border cooperation, partners would not have delivered a joined up welcome scheme. Before the games, each actions has contributed to develop the knowledge of our destination and to prepare local residents and businesses to welcome the world. During the games and for the first time a joint welcome scheme was implemented. French and English greeters welcomed together the visitors on the harbors/ferries on both sides of the Channel.

The GREET THE WORLD project has links with the SusTRIP projet and the CAST project. The tools developped in SusTRIP to evaluate the impact of an event have been tested in the Greet the world project for example in phase 3. The concept of greeter developed in the GREET THE WORLD project has been extended to the Belgian coast thanks to the CAST project.

The main lesson is the need to anticipate and prepare a project communication plan. Partners work actively to the success of the project and forget the need to organised specific INTERREG project communication events. A specific plan helps to follow the communication project.

Working together with partners of different culture is not always very easy but very rich in exchange of best practices. The different working groups of the project (marketing, press, development…) have now good relationship and feel part of the same team.

This project contributed to have a recognize big events touristic destination and specially in cultural and sport event as Paris Roubaix, Calais Race Cup, Louvre road, and impact of exhibitions in economic results of museums. Since this project, Partners give a strong place to sport and cultural events in their communication in general. The businesses network is a good experience which has been developed to respond to other projects as Great War northern France battlefield partners, a welcome network for the Great War century. The greeters’ network is a strong network. We pursued the exchange between all Trans-Manche greeters. Partners pursuit to the life of results and disseminate them thanks to a cluster. Each partner capitalized on the results of the project: partners’ actions continue to improve in function of the results as le CRT Nord Pas-de-Calais pursuit to measure the impact economic of events on the basis of the results implemented in the activity 3.

The five partners of Greet have been cooperating for many years. So they expect to continue in order to build a large cross border region for near-by customers. Moreover, they think to expand their partnership to other tourist partners met in the other European Programme as Sustrip, Balance or Cast. In this way, they hope to work together to share models, results, experiences in business development or marketing projects.

There are some actions of the project that partners would like to follow-up: greeters’ network, welcome businesses network, joint website… Partners would like to have the opportunity to communicate the results of this project. They would like to share these results with other INTERREG projects and to compare the methodologies, the way to work together, the impact of the partnership. All this information could be disseminated to the tourism actors: businesses and greeters for example. This could help them to have a best knowledge of the businesses in the other land of Europe with the aim to improve their activity.