The project managed to develop partnering lake areas into a joint sustainable tourism attraction with joint values and to connect the lake tourism service products to it. In the core of the joint tourism attraction and products was the joint positioning theme/brand Nordic-Baltic Lake Trails that was developed in the beginning of the project. Joint positioning theme was utilized in the product development workshops and in developing sales manuals. Based on the joint positioning theme, a Lakesperience marketing strategy was developed. As its main achievement, the project has succeeded in creating a joint Central Baltic tourist attraction. The project achieved 26 000 new visitors to the developed sites, while only 5000 were planned.

Regarding communication, the project had two main target groups identified in the project application. They managed to reach a larger amount of small and medium sized companies than planned (93 reached, 70 planned). The German Tour operators were also reached, but due to Covid it was no possible to see the German tourists coming to the developed sites in the partner regions.  The project’s work reached domestic target groups well and increased the popularity of lake/cycling tourism.
 
The cross-border work was significant. Ideas and views were shared, and that helped to see different perspectives and how things were being done in the other regions. The exchange of experiences between the project partners contributed to the assessment of the quality and potential of the services, a better and wider understanding of nature tourism and its promotion opportunities. This all cemented the work well, as the common objectives were set together. The created network will work beyond the timeframe of the project.
 
Also cross border cooperation added value to entrepreneurs’ work via the joint marketing in Germany. They found the joint study visit to Mecklenburg Lake District very useful. The region offers one of the best infrastructures for cycling tourists in Central Europe and was useful place for the exchange of experiences. They also got a change to meet with the companies from other partnering regions.

Concrete outputs to promote the joint attraction include maps, sales manuals, trail signs and marketing material such as videos. These will live on also after the project. The partners also organised lake festivals.
 
In communication there was also some cooperation with bloggers which resulted to blog posts promoting the project topics.

Direct links:
From Estonia: https://vimeo.com/478788556/a8e66c4e75
From Finland: https://vimeo.com/478789477/7ddfc5aa96
From Latvia: https://vimeo.com/478790515/e9916a8807
From Sweden: https://vimeo.com/478791029/e39264aa75