In 2015, nine small Hansa towns from three countries  — Latvia, Estonia and Sweden, joined forces in the project ‘Hanseatic Approach to New Sustainable Alliances’ with a general goal of popularizing historical values of the HANSEATIC League, which are, to some extent, still present in each of the partner towns even to this day. By collaboration of project partners, the plan is to create new tourism products and services in order to develop Hansa as a leading tourism brand in the Baltic Sea region. In English the abbreviation of the project is HANSA:  Hanseatic Approach to New Sustainable Alliances.

Participants of the project: Cēsis Culture and Tourism Centre, Koknese, Limbaži, Pārgauja and Kuldīga regional municipalities, Valmiera local government, Vidzeme planning region. Estonian partners: local governments of Pärnu and Viljandi. Swedish partners: Gotland region and Gotland Tourism Development Agency ‘Inspiration Gotland’ (main partner of the project).

Project activities:

Create engaging hiking and bicycle trails;

develop the brand ‘Hansa gastronomy’

perform a detailed research of Hansa history in local and foreign archives;

partnering with local tourism operators and tourism centres, create routes and tourism packages together;

inform the society about Hansa heritage and ways it can be used today;

develop HANSA tourism mobile app and other activities.

The project is carried out with the support of The Central Baltic Programme 2014-2020.

Expenses: 2,180,938.68 EUR, financing from the European Regional Development Fund – 775,573.25 EUR, partner co-financing – 405,365.44 EUR.

Find out more:

More on the project: http://koknese.lv/?s=542

Tourism materials HERE 

Follow news about the project on the following Facebook page: www.facebook.com/ExploreHANSA 

Project web page: http://www.hanse.org/en/projects/explore-hansa/  

Project Director: Inger Harlevi (Inspiration Gotland), inger.harlevi@balticness.se

Coordinator in the Koknese regional council Māra Bitane, mara.bitane@koknese.lv; T.+371 65133636

Author of the text: Koknese regional council, Vice-Chair of the Developement Department Māra Bitāne

Koknese - Hansa City, video: