Project's kick-off was held 27-29 November in Rovaniemi, Finland. These two days were filled with vivid discussions about forthcoming plans and learning about the practicalities around project management. All of the events were streamed and recorded so our partners from distance could join to the conversations. While the kick-off was the first meeting for the eight project partners, some of the associated partners joined us to present their visions about the issues at hand.

The kick-off was a great chance to gather around the notion of cultural sensitivity and to discuss its different meanings. It is still a quite new concept in tourism development and the novelty of our project lies in exploringthe possibilities and challenges of culturally sensitivity in tourism settings. So far, our common view is, that culturally sensitive tourism is 'Tourism that respects nature and cultures' AND 'Tourism based on respect'. We all are curious about different meanings of cultural sensitivity -- and continue to define it along the way.

On Thursday 29th, a joint networking seminar was held together with other NPA-funded project, W-POWER. The two projects found so many similarities, although our the focus is a bit different: W-POWER aims for equal growth and increase in the contribution of women to regional economy in sparsely populated Northern and Arctic communities whereas the main aim of ARCTISEN is to enable and support entrepreneurs to craft culturally sensitive tourism products. We will be delighted to work with W-POWER in the future.

Warm thanks to all the participants!