| background Gardens & parks (g & p) in rural areas have high potentials to strengthen the touristic attractiveness, but they should be more discovered and developed to get more positive and direct impacts on the sustainable development of the regions. Tourism is often one of the most important economic sectors in those regions which depended at former times mainly to the agricultural sector & to the ship-building industries. Regional and/or international marketing efforts for g & p don't exist or are unsufficient. Often there is a lack of well qualified & open minded actors in the tourism sector. Furthermore there is often a lack of awareness among the owners. G & p take up an essential part of the spatial structures of cities/agglomerations & do have in that sense invaluable functions. But our natural & cultural heritage is endangered because of a growing trend of lack of attention, due to cut budgets & diminuishing personal capacities. So, there is a need for new and innovative solutions, integrating all the relevant actors especially the business related to g & p (eg. horticultural). objectives The project focuses on how to use & to valorise the natural & cultural heritage of g & p in 5 regions for further economic & spatial devt. of the BSR - especially for sustainable tourism. Once the project is finalised, the regions will have identified & made publicly known g & p. There will be a higher proportion of g & p with high tour. potentials. Thus the existing ones will become upgraded & new ones will have been created. The effect is job creation, raise up of regional GDP & contribution to safeguarding of the biological diversity through regional devt. Combining g & p with other activities & setting up joint marketing measures the regions have had converted g & p as leisure & experience attractions. G & p have had become a part of the tour. offer - motto: "Use it or loose it!" outcome 5 regions of the Baltic Sea with 120-150 participating and/or benefitting g & p work together. In each region set up of g & p quality networks, concrete measures to develop g & p towards leisure and experience attractions. There is a strong focus on joint marketing measures and the development of new product lines, exchange and know-how transfer as well as common transnational projects (eg. webpage, reports, brochure for the general public). Natural and cultural heritage issues are linked and combined with tourism. The estimated effects will be more tourists and secondary houses owners and interested citizens proud of their natural and cultural heritage. It is stated that regions bearing a good quality of "landscape" are more attractive for ITC companies. activities The main activities are set up of working groups, expert rounds, data analyses, networking and man powered co-ordination ("pot-cracker principle"). Best practices and experiences will be exchanged between actors in an interdisciplinary way - garden and tourist experts, administrations, g & p associations, private owners and entrepreneurs. Self help efforts will be initiated and supported. Some pilot actions and demonstration projects to find new solutions will be carried out. Commercial and non-commercial activities will be initiated and combined to create new economic opportunities (public-private partnerships). activity locations DE: Lüneburg district - the rural triangle between the large agglomerations of Hamburg, Hannover and Bremen - with all 11 counties, City of Celle (federal 1st winner of the 2001 Entente Florale Competition, representing DE in 2002 on the european level), about 40 g & p; |