Abstract
The expanding possibilities for better quality of life increasingly accelerate the demand for various unique and uncommon services. The expansion of services had been recently spectated in all sectors and spheres of human activity. The impacts of these changes become evident both in cities and countryside. The increased requirements and demand for the variety of services in rural areas at the same time raised the value of unique cultural resources, held by specific regions. However creative innovators found new ways of using unique cultural resources in geographically distanced regions by establishing culture-uncommon thematic villages, which have potential to mature till unique self-organized business models.
This paper aims to explain the potential of using unique cultural resources in culture-uncommon environments for future regional development in the EU in a form of thematic villages. Based on a case study, performed in Lithuanian in 2018, this research gives evidence of successful initiative, developed by using cultural uniqueness in culture-uncommon environment. Research results reveal that creative application of cultural uniqueness in particular environment might add to the development of rural region both in economic and social sense. Culture-uncommon thematic villages hold potential to grow till fully mature self-organized business models and expand with social and economic impact on the particular region’s development. Therefore it is suggested to focus on fostering the use of unique cultural resources in the EU CAP support schemes 2020+ next to the aims of making EU agricultures equally developed by all indicators in all EU regions.
Vilke, R.; Gedminaite-Raudone, Z. 2020. Unique initiatives for future rural development: culture-uncommon thematic villages in Lithuania. Rural areas and development, Vol.16. DOI:10.30858/RAD/2019/16.0700. [ISSN 2657-4403].