The UBC Commission on Tourism
Rakvere, 20-23 May 2010
The Report prepared by Ms Ewa Kurjata, CoT Co-chair

On 20-21 May 2010 the UBC Commission on Tourism met at its first this year working meeting at Rakvere, Estonia. Originally the meeting was planned to be held in April, but it had to be postponed due to the volcanic ashes cloud all over Europe.

The Rakvere gathering concentrated around the issues related to the place branding in the BSR, Agora 2.0 Project and UBC City Marketing Guidelines. The major highlights of the meeting were Arne Ellefors' address (the Swedish Cultural Tourism Institute) on „How could tourism be a part of branding the Baltic Sea Region?" and Dr Tomasz Studzieniecki's lecture (Gdynia Maritime Academy) on place branding. As a scientific international expert on cultural tourism and place branding in the BSR, Dr Studzieniecki also actively ran the brainstorming activity commenting on the case study of Rakvere. The overall aim of the case study was to provoke all participants to think over their own cities' position and visibility within the UBC. It was clear from this easy exercise that the member cities should know how to position themselves on the UBC forum.

Keeping in mind the priority of marketing both the BSR and UBC, the Commission aims at monitoring major initiatives and a wider discussion on the international marketing and attractiveness of the Baltic Sea Region, as well as how various initiatives and actors can pool resources and coordinate their work better. The Commission also wants to update its members on the overall situation and political framework related to place and organisation branding. Place branding is based on a strategic approach to reputation management, stipulating that a change of image is an ongoing, holistic, interactive and wide-scale process, requiring much more than a quick change of logo or slogan. The UBC has a lot to offer , especially as its member cities have an enormous potential. Low visibility of the organisation on the international forum reflect in low visibility of its own members. At a time when the global competition between countries and regions is heating up, being unknown or having a weak image is a serious handicap. Not only the region needs to identify its identity, so do members. (UBC City Marketing Guidelines).

Another major theme taken up by the CoT is the Heritage Tourism for Increased BSR Identity - project Agora 2.0 . The project aims to improve the common identity of the Baltic Sea Regoion, based on its rich natural and cultural heritage. Heritage assets are considered not only interesting tourism attractions, but also relevant preconditions for enhancing the business environment. The project focuses on finding solutions and looking at how to use them in a sustainable way. That is why a strategic collaboration between the heritage, tourism and business sectors is to be set up. Heritage with pan-Baltic potential will be identified to strengthen tourism capacities and to make the BSR more visible. The project has been appointed a flagship project, contributing to the EU strategy for the BSR by developing strategies for sustainable ad environmentally friendly tourism.

The participants also had a chance to get acquainted with the latest information on Hansa tourism presented by the city of parnu. Destination branding and cultural tourism are among other topics of interest to the CoT. The CoT will also continue its work on updating its data base. It will prepare its surveys and rewrite the calendar of events relevant to the Baltic cities.