From ambition to action – rethinking tourism in the Baltic Sea Region 

The Baltic Sea Region is full of contrasts. Long summer days bring visitors in large numbers. But outside the peak season, many destinations fall quiet. Coastal communities, rural areas, and small tourism businesses face the same question year after year: how can we create value that lasts beyond the high season—and beyond concept of sustainability that is commonly framed as simply doing “less harm”? In recent years, this question has started to evolve particularly in destinations suffering mismanaged tourism flows. Unbalanced tourism will be one of the major pillars of the new EU tourism strategy. The publication of which has been postponed till Q3 2026.   

What if tourism could leave places better than they were before? An emerging concept has been gaining ground with sporadic implementation beyond conceptualisation: regenerative tourism. Regenerative tourism is an approach to tourism that uses visitation as a positive force to strengthen and revitalise places — environmentally, socially, culturally, and economically. It integrates tourism into the life and uniqueness of a destination, working with local communities and ecosystems to restore, enrich, and help them thrive, leaving the place better than it was before. 

This is where the Interreg Baltic Sea Region project RegenT – Integrating Regenerative Practices in Nature and Cultural Tourism lead by Novia UAS comes in. RegenT offers training and policy recommendations for public authorities, destination management organisations (DMOs), NTOs, NGOs, and business support organisations to make revitalisation and sustainable tourism a guiding strategy across the region. 

RegenT builds on a growing realisation across the region: sustainability is no longer enough. Tourism needs to move towards regeneration—supporting local communities, restoring ecosystems, and strengthening the places it depends on. But rather than starting from scratch, RegenT begins from something much stronger, experience and practice.  

Across the Baltic Sea Region, several projects have already explored different pieces of this puzzle: off-season tourism, local food systems, accessibility, climate resilience, and skills development. RegenT brings these strands together, consolidating results from seven different EU projects into a shared platform. In many ways, it is less about creating something entirely new and more about making existing knowledge usable, visible, and impactful.  

Connecting knowledge, people, and practice 

At the heart of RegenT is the idea of a Regenerative Tourism Hub. 

This is not just a digital platform, but a space for learning, exchange, and collaboration across borders. It connects destination managers at DMOs, public authorities, BSOs, and tourism developers together. Professionals who all see tourism from slightly different perspectives yet share the same challenges and similar visions. 

Through the regenerative tourism hub, the project will provide: 

• practical tools and guidelines 

• training programmes for destination development 

• case examples and tested models 

• opportunities for peer learning across the region  

Many of these elements already exist in different forms. What RegenT does is bring them together in a way that makes them easier to apply in real decision-making and everyday tourism development. 

Learning from what already works, one of the strengths of the project lies in its foundations. Previous initiatives have already demonstrated how tourism can adapt and innovate. For example, some projects have helped businesses develop off-season experiences rooted in nature and local traditions, while others have focused on strengthening culinary tourism or improving climate resilience and mitigation strategies. 

RegenT does not replace these efforts; it builds on them. By connecting results from seven projects operational across 14 countries, it creates a broader picture of what regenerative tourism can look like in practice. This also highlights something important: change in tourism rarely happens through one project alone. It happens step by step, through collaboration, testing, and learning across regions. 

A shared challenge—and a shared responsibility 

Tourism in the Baltic Sea Region is closely tied to nature and culture. At the same time, it is affected by climate change and contributes to it. This creates both a responsibility and an opportunity. RegenT responds to this by supporting those who make decisions about tourism, especially at regional and local level. The project provides resources, knowledge, and tools to help move from strategic ideas to practical actions in planning, investment, and development.  

In this sense, regenerative tourism is not just about experiences or products. It is about governance, collaboration, and long-term thinking. 

RegenT is still at an early stage, and much of the work lies ahead. Over the coming years, the platform will continue to grow through new tools, trainings, and exchanges between partners across the region. The ambition is clear: to move beyond individual project results and create something that can support real, long-term change. 

Because ultimately, the question is not whether tourism should become more regenerative. The question is how we start the progression towards a better designed tourism for local communities and the environment. 

RegenT is an operation of strategic importance, a so-called platform project financed by Interreg BSR in a consortium of six project partners and 25 associated organisations in 12 countries. The seven contributing projects have been financed by five different Interreg programs. Novia is lead partner. 

https://interreg-baltic.eu/project/regent/ 

This text has been review and approved by Novia's editorial board 11.6.2026.