TellTale Training in Europe: Lithuania and Slovenia


People listening to a presentation

After a year focusing almost exclusively on the next generation of experience tourism for Northern Ireland, it’s made a pleasant contrast to be back on the road, travelling further afield in Europe this autumn. We feel fortunate to have been invited back to three countries that we have much affection for.

Firstly, Lithuania, for our third visit. Peter gave a keynote on Using Heritage Interpretation to create meaningful visitor experiences on cultural routes at a fascinating conference on European Cultural Routes organised by the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture and funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Culture. The next day Susan and Peter jointly ran a day workshop which included sessions on ‘Themes and meaning’ and ‘Creating tourism experiences’. The group were immensely enthusiastic and appreciative and we learned a lot about Lithuanian Balts and amber in particular.

Whilst in Lithuania we caught up with our good friend and ex-TellTale intern Karolina . It was fantastic to catch up with her and see the fine interpretive work she has been doing since she left us. She’s an inspiration.

We caught up with good friends in Slovenia too, a month later. We met Marjeta Svetel and Verena Vidrih Perko several years ago through Interpret Europe and had visited previously to run an IE session on natural heritage interpretation. They had invited us back to run an intensive day workshop focussing on the research base for interpretation for the national MUSEOFORUM. We also ran a two-day workshop in the karst region where the emphasis was on using heritage for building sustainable tourism with a focus on creating meaningful experiences.