Tourism Cooperation in the Baltic Sea Region – a Win-Win Scenario
The tourism industry has the potential to be one of the engines for growth and prosperity in the Baltic Sea Region. But there is a need for broader and deeper cooperation across the Region to capitalise on the potential. Furthermore, coordination between stakeholders and seeking synergy effects between ongoing and future projects would greatly increase the effectiveness of strategies and projects.
At the Baltic Development Forum Summits in Hamburg, Stockholm and Helsinki representatives from business and the public sector discussed how actors in the tourism industry could cooperate in a more efficient way in order to stimulate growth and prosperity in the Baltic Sea countries.
The summit conclusions outlined that cooperation is fragmented, and in generally divided between the private and public sector. There is a lack of:
- Common standards and objectives regarding vocational training and services provided
- Common approach to statistics and thereby the capability to make a comprehensible evaluation of how the industry is performing
- Clusters created
- Common marketing and marketing goals for the region
See Session Summaries here.
At present, there is clearly a lack of information sharing and consequently the ability to coordinate projects within the tourism industry in the region. Coordination between stakeholders and seeking synergy effects between ongoing and future projects would greatly increase the effectiveness of strategies and projects.
Each individual player could be stronger in a European and Global perspective if these shortcomings were addressed by regional public-private cooperation. Thinking ‘glocal’ (combining global opportunities and local interests.), i.e. having an overall regional perspective when the players are operating at a local and/or global level, carries clear benefits for all.
Baltic Development Forum continues to provide key stakeholders the opportunity to meet and discuss opportunities and objectives for regional cooperation and ultimately formulate a strategy for tourism cooperation in the Region at the annual Summits.
However, several Round Table meetings and seminars have also tken place in the past years. The conclusions can be seen here.
Tourism is increasingly moving under the umbrella of the Braniding initiative Baltic Development Forum has been working on. As tourism is one of the pillars of the Branding process, it is sensible to integrate and coordinate initiatives within these two important areas more and more.
Baltic Development Forum has the ambition to lift up local, city- and port-level cooperation efforts to a higher, national level by gathering the national Tourist Boards in the Baltic Sea Region. The initiative is based on the Cruise Baltic project, which has served as a role model for better cooperation among the actors of the tourism industry both from the private as well as the public sector.
Together with VisitDenmark we envisage the national authorities work increasingly together on issues that are beneficial for all member countries of the Region.
If you have any inquires, want to have additional information about the initiative or share your insights, please do not hesitate to contact Project Manager Kinga Valeria Szabo for further information at +45 60 21 85 75 or ks@bdforum.org
Please find some useful background information about the state of the tourism industry in the Blatic Sea Region here:
