Seasonality in tourism is a major challenge throughout the world with negative implications for local communities and the environment in peak periods and a lack of employment opportunities during the low season. The low season, (fall, winter and spring) in the northern Baltic Sea Region is dark and cold, lacking unique selling features.

Light in the Dark addresses this in a collaborative approach working intrinsically with destinations (DMOs) and small tourism businesses (SMEs) in the coastal areas of five countries around the Baltic Sea to create experiences under a common concept that will attract tourists to the area during the darker months of the year.

To ensure that the project will fit the needs and challenges of local communities a survey of the views of 300 tourism SMEs shone light on the main challenges that SMEs face when tackling seasonality, simultaneously showing the potential and willingness to develop services. The survey revealed innovative ideas for the experience development process and resulted in recommendations for public authorities and the regional tourism ecosystems.

A concurrent market analysis was carried out at the beginning of the project with 5000 responses in nine European countries uncovering a strong potential demand for sustainable low season nature-based tourism. This was a necessary step to align the offerings with market demands and appropriate segmentation.

SMEs in Light in the Dark co-created products in the three experience categories; Nourished by Nature, Local Lifestyle and Active Adventure. Following service design methodology, the companies innovated the experiences collectively in a number of design sessions with DMOs.

The experiences have been tested both on a product card level and in a series of transnational live pilots during 2025. The results and conclusions of this process will be amalgamated into a handbook and product selection tool that will be freely distributed in training sessions throughout the region later in the project.

DMOs have constructed a concept that will support the individual SMEs’ experiences on a regional level with valuable input from tourism companies. The concept is also piloted during 2025 with a resulting media bank and connected material being freely available to DMOs and SMEs later in the year.

The concept helps the tourism sector to better respond to and adapt their businesses to low season, building resilience among businesses operating in the archipelago and coastal areas.