Extract

Sustainable tourism development in the Baltic Sea region post 2020

[...] The steadily increasing demand for international travels raises the question how destinations align their internationalization strategies in the future to benefit from the positive effects and minimize the negative impacts of growing tourism flows. These positive and negative implications require both, sustained development at all levels and collaborative partnerships across regions and states. Hence, in the perception of visitors political borders are disappearing, regions are merging thematically and travelers are moving freely and according to their individual and increasingly demanding needs in the Baltic Sea region. In defined areas, international solutions are inevitable to help tourism grow in a way that it fully exploits the vast international potentials, and at the same time, preserves the cultural and natural assets and respects the life of local communities.

Therefore, we, the tourism stakeholders in the Baltic Sea region share the conviction that sustainable tourism development at macro-regional level needs permanent cooperation patterns, stronger political support, and stable funding opportunities after 2020 to overcome patchwork structures, address common challenges, and increase the competitiveness on international scale. [...]

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