Coastline 2008 - 11 Reports
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COASTLINE 2008 - 11 REPORTS The INTERREG IIIB ToLearn Project Developing Sustainable Tourism in the North Sea Region Editors: G. von Rohr, C. Corves & H. Sterr The Coastal Union EUCC Die Küsten Union Deutschland Coastline Reports 11 (2008) The INTERREG IIIB ToLearn Project Developing Sustainable Tourism in the North Sea Region Requirements and Approaches to Enhance Non-Formal Learning Processes at the Regional and Interregional Level Final Report Editors: Götz von Rohr, Christoph Corves & Horst Sterr Department of Geography, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel Kiel, 2008 ISSN 0928-2734 ISBN 978-3-9811839-3-1 This report was prepared as part of the INTERREG Project ToLearn: Developing Sustainable Tourism in the North Sea Region funded by the INTERREG IIIB North Sea Region Programme. The publication was financially supported by the INTERREG IIIB North Sea Region Programme and the European Commission (Life+). The responsibility for the content of this report lies solely with the authors. Imprint Photo front: North Sea Tourism (Photo: ToLearn) Coastline Reports is published by: EUCC – The Coastal Union P.O. Box 11232, 2301 EE Leiden, The Netherlands Responsible national branch of this volume: EUCC – Die Küsten Union Deutschland e.V. Dr. Gerald Schernewski & Pina Springer c/o Leibniz-Institut für Ostseeforschung Warnemünde Seestr. 15, 18119 Rostock, Germany Coastline Reports are available online under http://www.eucc-d.de/ and http://www.eucc.net/. For hardcopies please contact the editors or the EUCC. Preface In all tourism destinations of the North Sea Region (NSR) there is a pronounced general awareness that further development of tourism needs to be organized sustainably, even though regional or local differences can be detected in this awareness. However, it has to be noticed that the responsible destination managers in the different regions are only little or even not at all informed about how other North Sea Destinations deal with the challenge of sustainable development. At the interregional level, the exchange of ideas and experiences still has to be improved, whilst at the international level only few approaches can be observed so far. Nevertheless, the experience shows that innovations in the development of tourist offers - whether concretely aligned to a sustainable aim or not - are often initiated by good solutions that have been developed elsewhere and which have been adapted to one’s own situation and enhanced. Such learning processes take place Z via the Internet, Z related to events or other happenings where people meet, Z in the context of agreed cooperation or with the help of pointedly organised individual forces. More often than not learning processes occur accidentally and non-sytematic. Chief difficulties are the lack of time of decision makers as well as the lack of knowledge, where and from whom something can be learned. This is what ToLearn attempts to address. On the one hand, the project documents, how individual North Sea destinations deal with the postulation of sustainable tourism. On the other hand, it provides recommendations for how regional, interregional and international learning processes within sustainable tourism can be enhanced pragmatically. Therefore, regional tourism profiles have been developed, one Pilot Region per partner nation has been chosen where in depth analysis were conducted. In addition, 22 Good Practise Examples are identified and described and four so-called Implementation Projects, one for each Pilot Region, were developed and evaluated. The recommendations include improvements for the publicly accessible information base for tourism development as well as interesting problem-solving solutions for the entire NSR. This Final Report contains a summary of the accomplished analyses as well as the concluding recommendations. Detailed analyses are documented in a separate volume ToLearn - Background Investigations . This volume was printed in a very small edition only but is available on a CD respectively downloadable from www.tolearn.info. In Chapter 1.4 content and authors of the Background Investigations Volume are listed. The editors would like to thank the Belgian, Danish, Dutch and Norwegian project partners cordially for the intensive and efficient cooperation during the project’s preparation and implementation phases over the past two years. Furthermore, we would like to thank the numerous experts and tourism managers who provided most valuable contributions to Focus Groups, Advisory Boards, Conferences and personal interviews. Cordially we would like to thank the project team at Kiel University and the colleagues of N.I.T. who played a leading part in preparing the results and editing the Final Report. Last but not least we would also like to thank the INTERREG North Sea Region Office in Viborg that supported the project’s smooth progress from its side. Kiel, October 2008 Prof. Dr. Götz von Rohr, Prof. Dr. Christoph Corves & Prof. Dr. Horst Sterr Involved Project Partners and Team Members Project Partners: Jacques Viaene (B, Gent University, Gent) Renata Januszewska (B, Gent University, Gent) Janne Liburd (DK, Syddansk University, Esbjerg) Anja Hergesell (DK, Syddansk University, Esbjerg) Niels Christian Nielsen (DK, Syddansk University, Esbjerg) Albert Postma (NL, Stenden University / formerly CHN, Leeuwarden) Johan Kasper (NL, Stenden University / formerly CHN, Leeuwarden) Reidar Mykletun (N, Stavanger University; Stavanger) Lead Partner: Horst Sterr (D, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel) Götz von Rohr (D, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel) Christoph Corves (D, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel) Final Report Team: Henrike Beer (N.I.T.) Christoph Corves (CAU) Katharina Drews (CAU) Sandra Enderwitz (CAU) Christian Galonska (CAU) Kerstin Hoffmann (CAU) Lars Michelsen (CAU) Dirk Schmücker (N.I.T.) Michael Schultz (CAU) Ulf Sonntag (N.I.T.) Horst Sterr (CAU) Karen Szemacha (CAU) Götz von Rohr (CAU) Contents Executive Summary ............................................................................................................................... 1 1 The Approach of ToLearn......................................................................................................... 8 1.1 Tourism Regions as Learning Regions ..................................................................................... 8 1.1.1 The Learning Region Paradigm ............................................................................................. 8 1.1.2 Learning Regions in the Tourism Sector ............................................................................. 10 1.2 Strategies of Sustainable Tourism Development – Guiding Principles and Approaches........ 11 1.3 The Objective of ToLearn: Enhancing Sustainable Tourism Development by Intensifying Interregional Learning Processes ............................................................................................ 14 1.4 Project Approach..................................................................................................................... 15 2 The North Sea Region as Area of Investigation...................................................................... 20 2.1 Relevance of Coastal Tourism for the North Sea Region ....................................................... 20 2.1.1 Methodological Framework: Potentials and Limitations of Statistical Compilation of Tourism Activity.................................................................................................................. 20 2.1.2 Coastal Tourism at the North Sea: Regional and National Importance ............................... 22 2.2 Structure and Development of Tourism in the NSR ............................................................... 32 2.2.1 Who Spends their Holidays at the North Sea?..................................................................... 32 2.2.2 North Sea Tourism: Attraction Points.................................................................................. 34 2.2.3 Extent, Structure and Development of Tourism: Similarities and Differences of the Coastal Regions in the NSR................................................................................................. 37 2.3 Regional Strategies for Sustainable Tourism Development.................................................... 43 2.3.1 Objectives and Development Strategies of the Coastal Tourism Regions in the North Sea Region ........................................................................................................................... 43 2.3.2 Significance of Components of Sustainable Development from the Regional Stakeholders’ Point of View ................................................................................................ 44 2.3.3 Orientation towards Innovation and Framework for Tourism Policy.................................. 47 2.3.4 Networking, Cooperation and Regional Learning Effects as an Impulse for Sustainable Tourism Development.......................................................................................................... 47 2.4 Summarising Valuation of the Tourism Development within the Various North Sea Tourism Regions ..................................................................................................................... 49 2.4.1 Strengths and Weaknesses in their Regional Differentiation............................................... 49 2.4.2. Present Tourism Trends in Supply and Demand and their Meaning for the NSR ............... 52 3 Pilot Regions as Learning