United in diversity

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The South Baltic Region is seen as one of the most heterogeneous areas in the EU. There are still great differences between regions, especially in terms of economic structure and development processes. In some rural areas, the economies still depend on agriculture largely, and do not fully exploit the opportunity of benefiting from the development of other sectors, such as tourism. On the other side, some of the well developed areas have succesfull accomplished the difficult process of structural change by using the potentials of their unique landscape and cultural heritage. The South Baltic regions: Central Pomerania, Bornholm and Southern Sweden are geographical very close. All those three regions have a lot in common regarding cultural heritage. On the other hand, great mental and cultural differences, especially between the people from Poland and those from Denmark and Sweden still occur. This multi – cultural environment is one of the greatest adventages and makes the South Baltic Region very attractive.Due to new cultural and naturalistic approach in the European Union countries, there are still more opportunities to exploit the undiscovered potential of The South Baltic Region, particulary in the tourism sector.The environmental unfriendly, traditional massive tourism, which still occurres in most coastal regions, is slowly losing it`s leading position. There is a growing interest for sustainable forms of activity, respecting protections needs for natural and cultural heritage. One of this forms is bicycle tourism, which is very high on agenda today. The unique landscape and rich cultural heritage of Regions of Central Pomerania, Bornholm and Scania, provide the best conditions for bicycling. All those regions have succesfull developed a lot of their own bicycle routes, but there is a lack of one big cross-border route. The main idea of this project is to support the sustainable development and promotion of the South Baltic Region, by creating a joint cross-border bicycle thematic route “Vikings and Slavs – in search for a common heritage”. This project has two main objectives: one related to the sustainable development of the affected area, aiming at reducing existing economic disparities, another one related to the remarkable social value inside this proposal.

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