Riverways

Closed

Rivers, lakes and coastline are important resources of the Programme area, which supports water tourism development. Both – in Latvia and in Estonia water tourism is part of active and nature tourism with high development potentials. Existing tourism offers so far is limited to the local market and is concentrated in most popular areas, but the number of rivers suitable for boating is larger, accessible starting from early spring till late autumn, decreasing also problem of seasonality. Lakes as water tourism elements are quite popular already, while sea kayaking is getting more and more popular and this requires corresponding infrastructure to be developed. Domestic target market has great potential to grow. Focused offer, packages for different target groups (Families with children, 1-day leisure boaters, 2-5 day boating trips etc.) and joint marketing and cooperation between the boating tourism operators and other tourism stakeholders is precondition to attract foreign tourists to the area. Main target markets for the active tourism products, including boating, are Lithuania, Finland, Russia and Germany. While planning increase of tourism flow and wise management of it, it is necessary to plan also proper infrastructure, in order to reduce negative impacts and load on nature resources and to ensure sustainable use of resources. This would also support growing needs of tourists for safety and qualitative services and would increase also spendings of tourists in local economies. Nature and active tourism tourists interested in exploring nature values will benefit from developed infrastructure and will be target of marketing activities of the project. Separate niche market segments will ensure effective use and load of developed infrastructure and bring benefit to the Programme area: (1) Incentives, for which special packages are developed to enjoy and explore nature products; (2) Fishermen; (3) Rivers and lakes cruise leisure tourists; (4) 1 day -5 day boating tourists (families with children, adventure seekers, leisure tourists etc). Targeted marketing activities will be elaborated to address above mentioned niche segments.

Medium