Remote Baltic Marinas as Drivers for Sustainable Coastal and Maritime Tourism Development
Coastal and maritime tourism, as the largest maritime activity in the BSR, is of major importance in its economy as the competitiveness of the sector is a driver for sustainable growth, jobs and social cohesion. In particular, marinas offer an attractive environment year-round as the sea is the biggest attractive factor of the BSR tourism, and blue spaces have various benefits for health and well-being. Development of destinations established around marinas, capitalising the use and the potential of marinas increases significantly sustainable development of the remote, rural BSR destinations from economic, social and environmental perspectives. As in BSR tourism vision 2030, marinas are understood as a part of interesting, sustainable tourism destinations, providing a variety of products and services (e.g. charters, events, fishing and wellness tourism, gastronomic heritage) and recreational opportunities. They have impacts, not only to tourism sector, but to local coastal communities.
As the EUSBSR states, the region needs to strengthen cooperation between actors to foster growth: integrating marinas into regional tourism development and recreational boating with other tourism sectors. Currently,
marinas are seen as separate entities in relation to other actors of the tourism sector in coastal areas, even if they form a part of the overall tourism package. Marinas follow their own development path, causing also risks for the overall branding of the BSR. However, there is a trend towards marinas organised as clusters, but coordination between the clusters in the BSR for coherent development is lacking. Regional clusters exist in different parts of the BSR; various capacity building activities and large investments have been done e.g. in Interreg South and Central Baltic projects (MARRIAGE, South Coast Baltic, PortMate, 30Miles, SmartPorts, MASAPO, BATSECO, BOOSTED, SmartMarina, SeaStop, Family Ports, CATCH, BalticPass, EST-LAT harbors). There is an obvious need for an umbrella-cluster project connecting these separate development activities and clusters in the BSR. This project builds on the previously implemented projects and merges their needs, best practices and clusters.
