Creating new Maritime Experience Points and marketing narratives for land tourists to renew the maritime destination profile of the South Baltic area – the MariEx project has been approved.
The South Baltic area is a hotspot for both coastal tourism and – around the lagoons and in the hinterlands – rural tourism in proximity to the coastline. For many holiday guests, maritime experiences are an essential part of their stay and one of the motivations to visit the region.
Challenges are thereby to find a proper balance between the wishes of the land tourists and the needs of their “genuine” users, so that the maritime character of the places can be kept alive in an authentic way.
To address the above-mentioned challenges, the project MariEx was established with the principal goal to seek to create new kinds of maritime experience points (MEPs), and to take them up into the “narratives” of the touristic marketing towards holiday tourists staying at the coast or in its hinterlands. Thus, the authentic maritime character of the South Baltic area as holiday destination will be safeguarded and further promoted, for the benefit of the attractiveness of both seaside resorts and hinterland locations.
The project has just been funded from Interreg South Baltic Programme with a total project budget of approx. 2,3 mln Euro.It is planned for 3 years, starting in May 2024 and finishing in April 2027. Partnership of the Project include: Tourism Association Vorpommern from Germany as the Lead Partner, Municipality of Kröslin, The Association of Sea Cities and Municipalities based in Gdansk, Municipality of Darłowo, Administration of Klaipeda District Municipality, Association Klaipeda Region, Hörte Harbour Association, Destination Sydkyst Denmark and Union of the Baltic Cities.
We are also proud to announce the start of a new project “BOATMAN: creating a South Baltic network of sustainable-tourism hubs connected to the maritime heritage theme“ co-financed by the INTERREG South Baltic Programme 2021-27. The project, initated by the Jack Strong Foundation (PL) and Klaipėda University (LT) has a goal of popularizing recreational boat building and other activities around heritage ships and boats.
BOATMAN is a joint initiative of sailors, historians, operators of heritage ships, local municipalities and tourism professionals from Poland, Lithuania, Sweden and Denmark. Together they want to revive the unique common Baltic Sea heritage of wooden boat building craft in the places on the South Baltic coast, where there is demand for innovative and sustainable out-of-season tourist attractions. Five community centers /sustainable tourism hubs connected to maritime heritage will be created in Västervik (SE), Dreverna (Klaipeda Region, LT), Gdańsk, Puck and Tolkmicko (PL). Within the projects investments and volunteer work several historical vessels will be restored or their replicas built. The whole touristic offer will be given a common branding and professional joint marketing. European Maritime Heritage Association (EMH) and Union of the Baltic Cities (UBC) are among the international supporters of this project.