Watch the Baltic Sea Tourism Forum 2022 webinar here!

Dear EUSBSR PA Tourism Stakeholders,

We are delighted to say that we had over 115 participants joining our Baltic Sea Tourism Forum 2022 online last week, on the 1st of December. This shows great interest in sustainable tourism cooperation in our region and a great potential for new projects, joint initiatives and upcoming events. We were very happy to see our participants actively raising questions and discussing the future EUSBSR PA Tourism actions.

The Forum started with welcoming words from the Vice Marshal of Pomorskie Region, Mr Wiesław Byczkowski, followed by the Mayor of Oulu Region, Mr Pauli Harju. They both not only greeted our guests but also mentioned the great significance of the tourism industry to both our regions. They also underlined the fact that since April 2022Pomorskie Tourist Board and Regional Council of Oulu have coordinated jointly the EUSBSR Policy Ares Tourism, which we see as a great challenge but also a huge opportunity to start new initiatives and find new synergies for tourism cooperation among all BSR countries.

After the welcoming words, EUSBSR Tourism Coordinators: Ms Magda Leszczyna-Rzucidło from Pomorskie Tourist Board and Ms Anna-Maija Toivonen from the Council of Oulu Region gave the overview of the Policy Area, including the introduction on the PA Tou relevance for the EUSBSR Action Plan, the actions were foreseen especially for tourism. They also introduced the details of PA TOU work, including the Steering Group meetings, the recent activities like active participation in the EUSBSR Annual Forum in Laappenranta, Interreg BSR 2021-27 Kick-off Conference in Hamburg and many more. PACs were joined by Ms Marta Chełkowska, Director of the Tourism Department in Marshal Office of Pomorskie Region and CEO of Pomorskie Tourist Board, and Ms Tiina Rajala, Development Director of Council of Oulu Region. They both underlined strong links and support for the PA TOU coming from the Pomorskie and Oulu Regions to PA Tourism.
Please find this presentation here: BSTF2022 PA TOU presentation(1)

The 2nd session was filled with inspiration, knowledge and best practices coming from outside the Baltic Sea Region. First, Ms Yael Froman-Ideses, VP and Tourism Director in Mayor’s Office in Tel Aviv, gave a speech titled “The Nonstop City meets the Start-Up City”, followed by many comments and questions from the audience.

Later, a speech by dr Eran Ketter, tourism thought leader and formal Head of Research and Insights in an ETC project on #COVID19 tourism recovery, outlined the Tourism trends for 2023 and their implications for Baltic Sea tourism. We highly recommend checking both presentations in the webinar recording.

You can also find Yael’s presentation here: The Nonstop City Meets the Startup City – Yael Froman Ideses – Baltic Sea Tourism Forum

Finally, we had a BSR practitioners session with three great inputs:

Baltic Sea Youth Declaration 2022 and recommendations to PA Tourism – by Mr Lok Hang Abraham Chan, BSYP Representative –> read the document here: baltic-sea-youth-declaration-2022(3)
Experiences regarding the topic of coastal tourism – by Mr Harry Bouveng, Chair of the CPMR BSC Maritime Working Group and Member of Region Stockholm Assembly, CPMR Baltic Sea Commission Tourism WG – find the presentation here: BSTF 2022_Harry Bouveng CPMR Baltic Sea Commission_coastal tourism
Sustainable tourism development in the City of Tampere and REACT EU project on sustainable tourism mobility – Mr Matti Pollari, Project manager, Visit Tampere – find the presentation here: Visit Tampere – sustainable tourism development and EU REACT mobility project_BSR tourism forum 01122022

We hope you enjoyed the Forum and will be interested in meeting us again in 2023 for the next Baltic Sea Annual Forum; this time, we hope to organise it in person in one of the BSR countries. More information will follow! Also, thanks to everyone who signed up for our EUSBSR PA TOU newsletter during the registration – we will keep you posted on upcoming funding opportunities related to PA Tourism, initiatives and events happening in the BSR, and the planned PA TOU webinars and live events in 2023. You can still sign up for our newsletter HERE.

Thank you to all our participants, great speakers and guests. We are happy to see you on board, and we welcome all the comments, questions and input on new possible cooperation formats with the EUSBSR Policy Area Tourism.

Watch the Baltic Sea Tourism Forum 2022 webinar here!

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