Burgos Deep Dive Report 4 th and 5 th March 2014 Main ideas and lessons learned
Index Methodology Key messages Study cases Charts Lessons learned and debriefing Complete picture on Methodology, main ideas and lessons learnt Methodology One of the elements and tools used during the Gastronomic Cities transnational exchange and learning process, is the Deep Dive, a methodology developed by the PLUS project Network (PLUS Project. Interreg IVC http://www.luciassociation.org/home.html ). Building on PLUS basis, Deep Dive methodology has been implemented and adapted within Gastronomic Cities, following the URBACT premise of exploring new ways of transnational cooperation and key elements and methodologies for learning. The philosophy of the Deep Dive is to learn deep into the experience developed by Burgos, through a whole programme of sessions combining site visits, interviews and workshops, in which we explored What and How was the Gastronomy city Strategy developed, specifically with professional peers and the relevant stakeholders within the Gastronomy topic. Burgos Deep Dive took place on 4 th and 5 th March, and the scheme followed is shown in this graphic:
The moment in which the Deep Dive was done, it was not by chance. Gastronomic Cities, as an Urbact Pilot Transfer Network were in a crucial milestone, in which the Baseline Report, a key tool within the Urbact Methodology, was being elaborated. The baseline info on Burgos and its good practice was sent to the cities before attending the Deep Dive (having the responsibility of reading and interiorizing it, as homework!), with the aim of starting to work with a sound underpinning of knowledge on the practices to be transferred and on specific objectives, expectations and local context of each city involved. On this basis, the Deep Dive, through the partnership active participation had three main objectives: First, to identify key success elements, or lessons learnt (especially those that were not included in the first baseline report draft and the cities consider interesting). The cities role, as learning cities, is crucial to test the contents. Second, to develop a self assessment of each city; match and reflect on the activities, resources, initiatives, stakeholders and the potential and chances within each city case. This will help the project to guide the transfer process from a useful point of view. Third, to improve and enhance the Burgos Good Practice, although this is a task to be carried out during the whole project. Cities point of view, as experts, it s really valuable. In order to meet all the objectives, and respect the overall aim of improving information and appropriate approach for the baseline report the first starting point for the Gastronomic Cities Network was to identify relevant elements. A very simple pocket book with the methodology for those two days was sent to the partners as well as specific forms to be filled with info and cities charts (To map and compare their situation) All the receiving cities had a specific responsibility and commitment that included a time for conclusions session, in which the questions, answers and reflections were compiled and shared by the responsible city to the rest of the partners. The methodology followed was a 2 full days programme combining workshops, interviews and site visits, from a participative and proactive approach. There was a combination of: Endogenous elements part of the Burgos city strategy (products, city facilities, ), as well activities and initiatives (programming). Private and public initiatives described. Various topics able to offer a complete picture of the city strategy. Different appropriate and professional profiles and specialization.
Different points of view and approach (from innovation to traditional profile). Specific session for decision makers' sharing points of view. Key messages Creativity and innovation: Chefs Burgos Chefs Movement had an inflection point within the Spanish Capital of Gastronomy, through the Burgos Chef Association: Good environment among the Chefs. The Association is a good combination of youth and experience. Make people happy with creative cuisine. It was necessary to start from the traditional products that we already have and go further by taking advantage of new techniques. Where does inspiration come from? New ideas come from knowledge. Meals are the reflection of the Chefs' background and experience. Cuisine has the power to transform a restaurant into a business. Wine and quality product protection Tourism and Gastronomy goes together. An official Wine route will be validated by next year 2015 in Burgos province. Wine industry is something that cannot be copied or delocalized. Ensuring identity, style and quality is required for success. Communication If you don t communicate your event, you won t succeed. To improve communication to wider audiences, a multi-layered communication strategy should be done at different levels. Commitment is something not regulated or measurable. Products promotion and province Complementary role of city and province. Maybe a city does not have internal jewels, but the province does.
Burgos province Burgos Alimenta promotion approach highlights among other activities: A Local Chefs lunch (where products were shown to Chefs in order to get known); Spanish Cyclist Tour promotion campaign; and National TV programme Un pais para comérselo participation. How can we enhance local and provincial cooperation? Complementary activities with quality products, as the ones mentioned. Key role of Chefs in product promotion chain. Training as element of Gastronomy There is an interest on building a link from Chef schools to producers. A strong defense of raw materials should be done at schools. Enhance ways of collaboration is required. Co-creation process Linkage among Chefs and other professionals is a key element Serve the meals in a way that the client could began to know the product Morcilla record Guinness Successful cases The City of Burgos and the Spanish Capital of Gastronomy organized the 'Guinness Record for the world's longest Morcilla', on 29 September 2013. The figures were impressive: 178 meters in length, 200 kilos of weight, more than 400 volunteers, 4,000 servings of pudding and a pot of more than two meters in diameter (made by a local private company through a free collaboration) The participation of Burgos citizenship was critical to the success of the Guinness Record. They were in charge of moving step by step the pudding to reach 200 meters in a painstaking process that began at 8am and end at 14.30 h. They received a commemorative t-shirt, chest guard and a diploma from memory.
Once cooked, 4.000 rations were cut by the volunteers. Those who want to taste a piece of the morcilla, may do so at the price of one euro, which includes a beverage. The incomes went to 2 NGO as charitable. This event was part of the program of activities of the Spanish Capital of Gastronomy Burgos 2013 and is designed to support the candidature to the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Environment, in order that the Burgos Morcilla is declared product with Protected Geographical Indication. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyzcylksw0w Key words: Volunteers, Citizens participation, commitment, Media impact, public-private cooperation, philanthropic, product promotion, gastronomy, product protection.
City branding and Marketing Plan Burgos developed a strategic process for designing the city brand. It had to involve the new tourism, cultural and business image. This initiative aimed to collect Burgos transformation in recent years, as well as its efforts to position itself as a cultural destination thanks to new equipment related to studies on human evolution and the importance of the gastronomy. The city brand is part of the city marketing strategy began by the city of Burgos as an open process of reflection addressed to different tourists and cultural agents. This process resulted in a marketing plan that points out the positioning of the city and defines the storytellings of the city, which allow to design the creative arguments of the brand. The Marketing Plan is the logical continuation of the strategy process that began in the city in 2001 with the establishment of the Strategic Plan Association, constituted by more than 60 organizations, companies, political parties, trade unions and organizations. Its main purpose is to configure a space to develop projects that need public-private partnerships and belong to the city projects category. But strategic plans must be adapted to circumstances. Documents can change. For this reason, and because of the city 's bid to become European Capital of Culture, the design of the Strategic Plan of Culture started in 2010 as an open reflection to all cultural agents. A year later, in 2011, the Strategic Plan which was written in 2001 was updated. The Marketing Plan is the document that draws the plot lines of the city, its stories,, to be able to design the city brand and set an action plan measures. The diagnosis report drew to the following conclusion: "The city of Burgos wants to project, through the development of the city brand, its new tourism, cultural and business image and the quality of life, to strengthen its position at national and international level. The principal idea revolves around the evolution of the city and the human evolution in archeological sites of Atapuerca. According to the diagnosis of the Marketing Plan, Burgos is a city with a glorious past that can transmit more transformation - evolution of the city. An intangible element (?)is present: a sober character associated with an attitude to the past, out of creativity and innovation. This unchanging image is reinforced by the lack of city brand, a modern image followed by all promotions. There is a hidden city not well disseminated: the city with quality of life, compact, sustainable, chosen as Science and Innovation city in Spain 2012, green, industrial, with excellent cuisine, where the Spanish language was born, with a young university, where the cold is fought with the wines of Ribera del Duero and Arlanza. In addition, Burgos is evolution, site of the first European man, where we reflect on what concerns as human, and there is a commitment with culture with the new buildings, especially the Museum of Human Evolution and the Auditorium, and with the achievement of being finalist for European Capital of Culture 2016.
Burgos wants to be a model of sustainable, compact city, able to retain talent and even attract it. The city breaks its past image, opening up to visitors, ideas, knowledge, human reflection. A city that evolves. ". A problem may be if we invest in marketing and branding but not in substance. So, the analysis of where are we now is very important. For example, our concept to the bid of Burgos European Capital of Culture was r-evolution. It s not a concept more or less brilliant or shocking. It s because Burgos is privileged to be the centre of human evolution in Europe and because human evolution and the evolution of cities are themes, which are critics for Europe as a whole. European society seeks a more sustainable path and Burgos aims to act as a model for development. And for example, our concept for the new brand of the city is Smile, is Burgos, so, we called to one of our projects: Devours, is Burgos. To design the city brand, an open call was published in 2012. The process culminated weeks after with the election and the development of the new image of Burgos. The B of Burgos. In this story, a new brand of Burgos, a smiling 'B' transmits a friendly and attractive image that perfectly fits many messages, both from the point of view of the use of color and the slogan designed. We don t use a single slogan. Under the formula of ' imperative verb + is Burgos ' we use different concepts like ' Smiles is Burgos ', ' Devours is Burgos ', ' Innova is Burgos ', ' Enjoy, is Burgos, 'or ' Explore, is Burgos, '. Once we get the new brand, the Association Strategic Plan of Burgos began to work on the implementation of initiatives that relocate the image of the city, especially in terms of tourism. One of the strategic lines or aims of the Strategic Plan of Burgos 2020 identified the need to promote gastronomy tourism. For this reason, in late October launched an initiative called ' Devora is Burgos 2012.
Key words: Substance, coherent, medium term process, city branding, evolution, promotion, strategy, gastronomy tourism, endogenous elements, background.
Charts During the Deep Dive, each city mapped and self assessed their situation in comparison with the city of Burgos in regard to Challenges and resources, Targets and results and Activities. These material will be used along the project to focus the transferring process. Here is Alba Iulia s Chart as an example:
Lessons learnt and debriefing Existence of the proper organization (association Strategic Plan City of Burgos) with adequate know how and motivation: Staff dedication instead of a big budget is required to develop a Good practice. Strong commitment of local authority representatives. Communication, ICT, and Social networks role and its importance within Burgos good practice should be highlighted in the baseline report. Transfer blocks should be defined within Gastronomic Cities project (to organize and tidy up how to transfer the practice, steps and thematic), for example: ORGANISATIONAL ACTIVITIES PROGRAMMING COMMUNICATION Some subjective elements were important in the development of the good practice: Commitment from local stakeholders. Emotional collaborators (mentioned by Roberto da Silva from Burgos Morcilla producers): this is key for the USLG. Key element: The importance of communicating/disseminating events and Let the citizens actively participate, not just as audience. Devora, is Burgos event example: There are events that are an engine for a process. Citizens hopeful/proud generating projects are an important part of the background for a city strategy. Work from a Stratum approach (specially for communication, different steps: citizens, local, national, ) and continuously support of promotional activities (at local and national level) Burgos Chef Movement (association). Again the importance of a subjective element: Good environment within chef collective as a starting point. Take advantage of the products and activities that we already have in our cities.
Take advantage of Province and producers (from the province), that are willing to have promotion and linkages (virtuous circle) in our cities. Key point of Burgos practice: Extended and active participation of stakeholders and of local community. Establishing a new brand-name-image-publicity of the city: First successful chapter of the story. Need of public- private sector relations (effective cooperation) Cultivating a relative culture in local society. Supporting educational activities in the field of gastronomy. Building a concrete strategy with a long term vision. Some strengths, concerning Burgos good practice that were highlighted by the partners: Synergies with all actors (policy makers, operators, ) Clear and focused objectives. Availability of resources to carry out basic activity. Citizens involvement and participation feeling. Break down with the city past and r-evolution. In regard to the weakness: Schools involvement: diversifying schools (agriculture) and age. Nutritional foods and well being aspects, should be enhanced Synergistic effect of tourism system. Burgos Deep Dive will be a starting point for the cities Urbact Support Local Group, as their key stakeholders representatives participated in the event. Take advantage of the Deep Dive impulse and launch their local activities.
Gastronomic Cities: City strategy on gastronomy as a tool for tourism and employment development is a Pilot Transfer Network within the framework of URBACT programme. The network, with 16 months of duration (starting in December 2013 and finishing in March 2015), involves 5 European cities through its municipalities: Fermo (Italy), Hospitalet de Llobregat (Spain), Alba Iulia (Romania) and Korydallos (Greece), leaded by the city of Burgos (Spain). Gastronomic Cities identified as a good practice the experience developed by the city of Burgos setting Gastronomy as a strategic axis of tourism in the local agenda, facing the lack of territorial differentiation/positioning of the city as a tourist destination. Elements as the quality of local products, innovation and creativity, citizenship, public-private partnerships, research, city marketing have been crucial components of the strategy. Taking into account that all territories have the mentioned gastronomic elements and resources (as well as professionals) to discover as well as tourism resources, Gastronomic Cities aims to validate that the generation of culinary tourism as a transforming element of a territory is extensible to other places. The main goal is the transfer of the gastronomic good practice to the cities participating in the network, through a full programme to exchange and learn from one another, from 3 different angles: Validating and improving the identified good practice, identifying key elements of success for the transfer, and exploring new ways of transnational cooperation. For this purpose, the Gastronomic Cities exchange and learning process, will be working in two levels: - At the local level, involving the relevant stakeholders in the development and implementation of an Action Plan, through a participatory approach. - At the transnational level, through a mutual learning approach where policy makers and local stakeholders will participate in transnational events, staff exchanges, and peer review milestones, that will allow them to be trained and deeply informed, and will enhance the local scenery. http://urbact.eu/en/projects/human-capital-entrepreneurship/gastronomic-cities/homepage/ This Project is co-financed by European Regional Development Fund ERDF in the framework of URBACT II Operational Programme.