Baltic Welcome Center

In December 2001 the project application Baltic Welcome Center for a high quality sustainable development of cities and regions in the BSR in the frame of spatial planning aspects was approved by the Steering Committee of the Interreg IIIB programme. One and a half year later the participants are halfway through the project. The project has also grown numerously from the original five member cities and regions working in the Interreg IIIB programme to 9 members altogether. The latter mentioned members receive their European funding through the programmes Tacis (Kaliningrad, RU) and Phare (Ivangorod, RU, Narva, EE and Cesis, LV). The original members are Kalmar (Lead partner) and Vaxjo, SE, Halden/Ostfold len, NO, Turisme Region Syd, DK and Schwerin, DE.

The overall aim for the project is to form an international standard for Baltic welcome centers in the Baltic Sea region. The standard will be the basis for what can be defined as a Baltic Welcome Center. The project is divided into five modules, or work packages (WP) as it is called in the Interreg world. The five WPs are: International standard; Spatial planning; Investments; IT and Marketing & communication. As you may understand from the WP titles the project is provided with some means to invest in existing or new welcome centres. The reason why the conception Tourism Information Centre, TIC, is not used here is that the project aims at creating something beyond or more than a traditional TIC.

So far, the activities in the project have focused on the international standard discussion. It is not an easy task to bring different (variant) opinions into line with each other, especially when the opinions are coming from partners from different cultures and history. Research, study visits and surveys in all existing welcome centres are the basis for the future discussions. Some investments in IT and reconstructions have already been done. Two coordination meetings have taken place after the kick-off in Nykobing F., Denmark in January 2002. Halden, Norway (May 2002) and Kalmar, Sweden (September 2002) have had their chances to show the best of their regions during coordination meetings.

At the time of writing there is a third coordination meeting going on in Schwerin, Germany. This time there are members from the Tacis and Phare side of the project for the first time. There are also representatives from the national tourist boards present, to be able to give their opinions on a new standard for the Baltic Sea region.