On November 29, 2011, the General Meeting of the members of the Lubuskie Regional Tourist Organization “LOTUR” was held in Zary. The work of the second term of the association’s Board of Directors in 2008-2011 was summarized. The assembled gave the outgoing Board of Directors of “LOTUR” a vote of approval for 2008-2011. The General Meeting elected new authorities. Jadwiga Błoch was re-elected president of the board.
Patrycja Górniak (deputy director of the Department of Regional Development, representing the Marshal’s Office of the Lubuskie Voivodeship) and Jozef Kruczkowski (starost of Gorzow County) were elected vice-presidents of the association. Ryszard Oleszkiewicz (head of Lagow municipality) and Zbigniew Rudzinski (PTTK Gorzow Land Branch) were elected as members of the board.
Tomasz Jaskuła, Jaroslaw Wnorowski and Zbigniew Wlodarczak were elected as members of the Audit Committee.
The association was established and registered at the end of 2004 under the Acts on Associations and on the Polish Tourist Organization. The association, with the participation of the province, began operations under the name Lubuska Organizacja Turystyczna “LOTur”. The first term of the board of the Lubuska Tourist Organization began its activities at the beginning of 2005 and ended in August 2008. Since September 2008, the second term of the association’s board of directors under the current name Lubuska Regional Tourist Organization “LOTUR” began its activities. The past three years have seen the strengthening of the association’s position as a regional tourism organization within the structures of the Polish Tourist Organization and as an institution supporting the development of tourism products and promoting the attractions of the Lubuskie region both nationally and internationally.
The association currently has 47 members, including 17 local government units, 14 tourism entrepreneurs and nine associations.
In recent years, the association has promoted our region at the most important tourism fairs in the country and at international tourism fairs in Stuttgart, Hamburg, Brussels, Berlin, Leipzig, and participated in important other industry events and conferences.
Within the framework of commissioned tasks, LOTUR carried out, among others, the Development Strategy of the Piechowice Municipality for 2010-2014, regional editions of the competition for the best tourism product “Lubuska Perła Turystyczna”, training courses “Tourism product management – dissemination of good practices” and “Certification of tourism information system”. The Association was also the organizer or co-organizer of numerous conferences, including “Cooperation in the development and promotion of Polish tourism,” “Lubuskie Turistically Active,” “Tourism Promotion of Poland in the context of UEFA EURO 2012 and opportunities for Lubuskie.” LOTUR also conducts certification of Tourist Information Points in the province. On its own, it has also been organizing the Lubuskie Tourist Ranking of Municipalities for two years.
The Association, representing Lubuskie, in recent years has been and continues to be a partner in other projects of supra-regional, national and transboundary scope, including Tourism Common Cause, Partnership for the Oder, Land of the Oder or For Adventure on the Water between the Warta and Oder.
The Association has also carried out several of its own projects, such as “Zawód Informator Turystyczny” (as part of the ESF Human Capital), “Lubuskie Nordic Walking Trails” with funding from the Ministry of Sports and Tourism – marking and marking nearly 600 km of trails, or most recently “On the Trail of Penitential Crosses on Both Sides of the Oder”, co-financed under the Small Projects Fund (SPF) of the Euroregion Spree-Neisse-Bobr.
In 2008-2011, 21 study tours were carried out by LOTUR for both journalists, tour operators and the tourism industry, with a total of 120 participants . These trips resulted in numerous press articles and radio and television broadcasts, which were aimed at tourists both from Poland, Europe and outside the continent. All study tours were organized with the close cooperation of our members, partners and supporters of LOTUR. The study tours are constantly used in building a positive image of our region and promoting its tourist attractiveness at home and abroad.
Cooperation with the Polish Tourist Organization is primarily the implementation of activities under annually signed agreements, which in recent years have included participation in the largest domestic and foreign tourism fairs, hosting tour operators and foreign journalists, and cooperation in the preparation and printing of publications promoting the Lubuskie region (Hity Lubuskie, Informator Turystyczny each in four language versions). LOTUR is actively involved in the implementation of the Marketing Strategy of Poland in the tourism sector for 2008-2015.
In addition to promotional activities carried out jointly with the PTO, LOTUR representatives participate in consultations, substantive meetings, and are members of problem committees at the PTO. Among other things, the Association participated in the co-creation of the Handbook of Good Practices – which makes it possible to define problems and show the best solutions for the operation of regional tourism organizations bringing together public and private partners whose task is to support the development of tourism in regions and individual localities. LOTUR also participated in the implementation of the PTO-DZT project “Land of the Oder.”
The association has its headquarters in Zielona Góra and has also launched a branch in Gorzow Wielkopolski.
