Karlskrona Heritage Tourism Strategy

Here you will find a summary of the Karlskrona heritage tourism strategy. You will find the document as a whole by clicking on the link below.

In the case of Karlskrona, "accessibility" is the critical issue ensuring that visitors could reach fascinating components of the World Heritage property in the military zone, while the decisions about heritage management and accessibility are made in Stockholm, not in Karlskrona.

This issue is highlighted both by Karlskrona visitors and by the local World Heritage site managers alike. Therefore, a good governance of the South Baltic coastal cultural World Heritage sites, first of all, requires a continual process of interaction between the site managers and local stakeholders. In other words, for multi-level governance.

Create a Collaborative Network

It is not sufficient to search for a 'win-win' solution to conservation and development challenges and conflicts. Instead, reconciling coastal cultural World Heritage conservation, heritage-based and seaside tourism, and local community interests are the process of seeking for a 'win-win-win' type of resolutions and compromises. It is a tall order, but it can be rewarding one.

For the sustainable heritage tourism development strategy to be truly successful, a strategic priority should be to create a collaborative network that could include all critical stakeholders in heritage and tourism management in Karlskrona and, more widely, in Blekinge county.

Make Citizens Pride of the World Heritage

Karlskrona Tourist Office should collaborate more closely with Blekinge Archipelago UNESCO Biosphere Reserve and further strengthen Ark 56 – Karlskrona, Southern Oland, and Blekinge Archipelago – as a single sustainable heritage tourism destination.

Blekinge Archipelago Biosphere Reserve already provides an excellent example of small-scale tourism sustainability in an attractive protected environment. It is challenging to ensure a genuinely active grassroots participation from the city inhabitants in World Heritage conservation, promotion and management. The goal should be to make them proud of the World Heritage and feel that they own it; they are welcomed in the management structures and processes and the sharing of ideas.

Good Cooperation with the Military

The successful experience of Karlskrona sends an excellent message to other South Baltic coastal cultural World Heritage sites: with dedication, patience, and goodwill, different stakeholders at the World Heritage site can indeed find a consensus and establish a collaborative operational structure. It indeed can lead to the process which is beneficial for heritage property managers, residents, the governmental agency that owns the heritage property and, last not least, for tourists visiting the site as well.

Good collaboration with the military on heritage conservation is not so frequent on a global scale. The case of Karlskrona is exceptional, indeed, since the military presence and the innovative use of the naval base is part of the long-lasting tradition.

Sustainable heritage tourism strategy, the Naval Port of Karlskrona