Second PROWAD LINK Forum held in digital “Wadden Sea World”

The second PROWAD LINK Forum took place as a virtual event in the newly designed “Wadden Sea World” on 2 November 2021. In total, 30 participants joint to two-hour meeting to discuss the Interreg project's results and planned activities for 2022.

Much attention was given to the new developed Wadden Sea World Heritage brand activation tool, for which a first training session was given this summer. Stakeholders from the Netherlands took on informing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) at their local events and to apply it in their networks by March 2022.

The recent developments of the establishment of the Wadden Sea World Heritage Partnership Hub were presented. Currently, the Hub acts a platform to initiate and support stakeholder projects in relation to the World Heritage.

The first trilaterally coordinated visitor survey was also introduced, and first preliminary results where presented, which underlined that visitation has changed during the pandemic. A complete overview of the results will be available by end of 2021. The results will be made available to local partnerships and networks, as well as local communities.

As a new project activity, the North Sea Sustainable Innovation Challenge was introduced. It will be launched at the end of 2021 and aims to Identify innovative sustainable tourism business models and products that can help to transform and revitalize the tourism sector across the North Sea region after COVID-19. The challenge is open to any stakeholder. The winner will enter into a mentoring/coaching programme with the PROWAD LINK team.

As the project proceeds, there will be further opportunities to engage with stakeholders on various themes along World Heritage brand activation, Partnership Hub, sustainable entrepreneurship and co-creation of sustainable products and services. The online exchange will continue, though it cannot replace meetings in person, which, hopefully, will be possible again soon.