Project No. C034
Co-Creating a New Tourism Concept for the Baltic Sea Region. 56 tourism professionals from five countries gathered in Jurmala, Latvia to create a new tourism vision for the Baltic Sea Region. For two intensive days last week we heard inspirational talks from the region and markets and co-created experiences, products and evaluated the new draft Light in the Dark concept.
The days were kicked off by project manager James Simpson and local partner Kurzeme Planning Region’s project manager, Anna Upsava. Sintija Pusaudze from Liepāja Regional tourism office gave a key-note talk of examples of collaborative development when DMOs (tourism visit organisations) and SMEs work together.
The region’s biggest challenge is the lack of spectacular highlights, especially during the low season. The concept promotes the common cultural and societal values found in the Nordic and Baltic countries. A region where the quality of life is based upon access to nature, outdoor life and hearty foods. The concept developed by Pär Johansson from Stockholm Business Region reflected these values, and the draft concept will be improved upon before being piloted. After the Light in the Dark concept was revealed, it was time for the tourism entrepreneurs to disclose their ideas for new off-season products to the project partners and DMOs. The creative session sparked ideas on how to possibly develop the initial ideas further to become sellable packages and products in a competitive market.
The second day of the meeting started with an online session about distribution channels in the DACH market, presented by tourism specialist Jan Baldur from Nordic Marketing. The project partners, the invited DMOs and SMEs were again divided into workshop sessions.
Project partners worked on the plans and schedules where both the concept and experiences will be piloted in all participating regions and countries in 2025. This is a complicated task as a total of 18 pilots will be executed, evaluated and complied into handbooks, which will be subsequently distributed to SMEs and DMOs throughout the region.
The SMEs were once more divided into new constellations and worked in a learning café facilitated by the team from lead partner Novia University of Applied Sciences comprising of Eva Holmberg, Maria Engberg and Annemari Andrésen. A learning café is a practical and creative way to enrich the discussions. In the different learning café stations, the SMEs benchmarked each other’s best practices and explored new innovative strategies for marketing the Northern Baltic Sea region. Pricing strategies and distribution are important aspects and were discussed and pondered upon at different stations. In the fourth step, the entrepreneurs brainstormed how to design experiences around darkness and silence.
Project “Light in the Dark”
Light in the Dark is an Interreg Baltic Sea Region project aimed at developing innovative experiences to extend and create new seasons beyond the traditional summer season. The Challenge Inventory survey is conducted in all participating countries: Finland, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. It is aimed at SME’s in the Northern Baltic Sea region and explores the interest of small and medium-sized businesses in expanding their operations beyond the traditional summer season as well as the challenges they face regarding seasonal variations in tourist flows.
More about the project: https://www.kurzemesregions.lv/en/projects/tourism/light-in-the-dark/
Project manager:
Anna Elizabete Upsava
+371 26369876
anna.upsava@kurzemesregions.lv
