The tourism flow is not equal within the region: the most popular sites are generally overcrowded, and the lesser-known places are under-visited.

The 17 historical towns within the triangle created a network, set up with INTERREG support by the regions of Kent (United Kingdom), Nord–Pas-de-Calais (France) and West Flanders (Belgium) to take advantage of their common heritage. By creating this new tourist product, the partners have sought to increase the number of visitors and overnight stays in the three regions and to encourage development and employment around the sites concerned while stimulating cultural exchanges.

With its innovative concept, the Network of Strongholds is meeting the current trends in demand for weekend tourism and organised tours. It is making the three regions more attractive and enabling them to achieve a more even flow of tourists between the most popular sites, which are generally overcrowded, and the lesser-known places.

The widespread introduction of multilingual explanations is encouraging sightseers to visit all the sites and, for this purpose, the partners also plan to step up the activities of the cross-border transport companies. At the cultural level, historians and archaeologists are working with tourist professionals to make the visitors and inhabitants aware of the rich common heritage of the three regions and to encourage exchanges.

In concrete terms, the network has organised actions like the creation of discovery tours (walks in and around each town), a travelling exhibition for tourist fairs, publishing a trilingual promotional brochure to present the network, a cultural and tourist brochure in three versions (English, French and Dutch) and running advertising campaigns in the media.

Actions specific to each town – restoration of architectural sites, exhibitions, audiovisual products, publications, etc. – are also being implemented.

Total costs were 874 504 euros, of which the EU contributed 407 572 euros.

The project is part of the INTERREG II A programme.

Joint Association of the Côte d'Opale
Phone: +33 3 28 58 06 30
contact@cote-opale.fr

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Urban Policy > Economy knowledge & employment > Urban economy

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