Innovative communication of sacred places for attractive tourism in the Baltic region – Time Machine (TM)

The purpose of the project is to investigate the conditions for using our common cultural heritage of the Baltic Sea area, in the form of sacred places in the landscape, for developing tourism and for strengthening our cultural identity.

Project information

Lead partner: Linnaeus University, School of Business and Economics & Faculty of Arts and Humanities
International collaborating partners: Gdansk university, Poland; EUCC Baltic Office, Lithuania; Žemaitija National Park, Lithuania; Bornholm museum, Denmark
Project budget: 747 064 Sek (of which 500 000 Sek covered by SI)
Funding: The project is funded by the Swedish Institute, SI, under the Seed funding for cooperation projects in the Baltic Sea region, and project partners.
Time period: 2020-08-01–2022-01-30
Themes: applied heritage, tourism, archaeology, wellbeing, environmental science

More about the project

This project is designed to meet and draw benefits from the currently increasing interest and demand for spiritual tourism, which is a part of wellbeing tourism and in the case of this project also of archaeological tourism, as well as the need to connect with the landscape and heritage.

Good practice cases as communicated by EUSBSR (2019) shows that there is an “absence of significant natural sites in the region that focus on promoting the cultural heritage of the region to attract tourists”. The seed funding will be used to make a prefeasibility study of a full project including assessment of available sacred sites in the landscape and the communication of them for tourism, and make necessary preparations, including identification of key actors, establishment of a proper partnership, and creating a shared vision for a 3 year project.

A selection of deliverables

• A compilation of sacred sites in the landscape of the participating regions suitable for being part of a crossborder cultural tourism route
• Identification of attractive communication of sacred places for tourism & the local society
• Identification of common features and values supporting our awareness of a shared Baltic Sea region heritage
• A network and shared vision for developing a full project

Financier