Mobile guide, accessibility and content marketing – how to develop thematic tourism
Is your company or tourist attraction planning to introduce a mobile guide or invest in more customer-centred content marketing? Do you intend to pay more attention to sustainable development in your business? Or is there a need to improve the accessibility of the destination?
These topics and also, for instance, the challenges of repairing and renovating historic sites as well as the production of a marketing video are addressed in the electronic publication Bunkers, Battles, Ruins and Seals – Developing Thematic Tourism in the Baltic Sea Archipelagos (edited by Telle Tuominen and Heidi Tuominen). The publication brings together a spectrum of expert views and complements the professional articles with interview videos.
Although the publication is produced in the DefenceArch project, coordinated by Turku University of Applied Sciences (TUAS), it offers development tips, benchmarking opportunities and observations worth considering for all tourism business.
“The competition between destinations is stepping up and travellers’ expectations and consumption behaviour are changing. This publication illustrates different development actions. The key issue, from the viewpoint of both businesses and destinations, is the vision that leads the way. Once there is a vision, the actors must proceed within the limits of their resources and engage in continuous development”, explains Telle Tuominen, Senior Lecturer in Tourism Services and Marketing at TUAS and a co-editor of Bunkers, Battles, Ruins and Seals – Developing Thematic Tourism in the Baltic Sea Archipelagos.
“In addition to tourism businesses, this multiprofessional publication is useful for developers, specialists and anyone working in projects. The publication can also be used as educational material. It helps to share our practical experiences of, for example, producing marketing videos. Video has emerged, after all, a medium of communication regardless of the field”, Project Advisor at TUAS Heidi Tuominen adds.
Open access publication available
Bunkers, Battles, Seals and Ruins – Developing Thematic Tourism in the Baltic Sea Archipelagos (Turku University of Applied Sciences, 2018) is electronically available free of charge.
DefenceArch develops thematic tourism in the Baltic Sea archipelagos
The DefenceArch project (Footprints of Defence in the Archipelago 2016–2019) focuses on the development of archipelago tourism and particularly destinations related to defence heritage in the Baltic Sea area. The project, which is funded by the Interreg Central Baltic programme, aims to convert the so far untapped defence heritage sites located in the archipelagos of Turku, Åland and Stockholm into attractive tourism destinations that follow the principles of sustainable development.
The pilot destinations in the DefenceArch project are the former seal training station of the Swedish navy on the island of Gålö, the ruins of the Bomarsund fortress in eastern Åland, the southern cape of the Örö fortress island and Archipelago Centre Korpoström. In addition to TUAS, the project is participated by Parks & Wildlife Finland, Visit Åland, Stockholm Archipelago Foundation and Åboland Archipelago Foundation.