You probably know the term ’the season’. A word that has almost become a Bornholm concept for the time of year when the most tourists come to the island. When people say ’the season’, permanent residents know exactly what is meant – ’the season’ is that time of year. On Bornholm, we are well on our way to extending the season, but now the work needs to be given an extra push.
Both the duration of the tourist season, but also the understanding of it. The tourist season must be further developed as a year-round industry. This is taking place, among other things, with the project: Bornholm's tourism - all year round and across the entire island. A visionary project with Destination Bornholm as the driving force in close cooperation with Business Center Bornholm.

Ambition

A project that is to build on the good, existing work - but what should the future actually look like for Bornholm's tourism industry? Pernille Kofod Lydolph, director of Destination Bornholm, answers that:
”First of all, we hope for more visitors outside the summer period, while at the same time maintaining the number of guests on the island during the summer period. The way to achieve this is partly about business development with a special focus on our international guests, and partly about business development on an informed basis. And this applies to everyone who works with the development of Bornholm – either in their own business or on behalf of the island,” and she adds:
”Last but not least, we must at the same time get better at bringing a larger part of the island into play, so that we help guests discover all the fantastic things we have to offer, of which many only discover a fraction.”

Good business sense

Bornholm's business community already has a firm grip, which is also being noticed elsewhere.
”First and foremost, we are really good at collaborating on the island. And to such an extent that together we create results that make many others look towards us. Most recently, Värmland in Sweden and Destination SydkystDanmark in Zealand have been in touch with us on Bornholm to learn from our joint work. They note that we increasingly have visitors spread across a large part of the year, and want to learn from our experiences,” explains Pernille Kofod Lydolph.
That does not mean, however, that it is time to rest on one's laurels:
”We can certainly become even better merchants, but that requires insight and knowledge about where the guests are, when they visit and when we can expect them to arrive, and who they are. New data sources such as weather data, telecom data, revenue data, etc., must give us insight into expectations for the coming weeks and months, so that we can ensure the guests a great experience while also boosting revenue and earnings. That is some of what we will be working on in the project, and where, in collaboration with Business Center Bornholm, we will help provide the figures and together ensure that we interpret the figures correctly – and otherwise get used to using them, she says.

Development

That tourism can be developed is evidenced by the last ten years. Here, the number of annual overnight stays has increased from 1.2 million to 1.8 million. Turnover has kept pace. From a total tourism-related annual turnover for the whole island of 1.2 billion kroner to 3.0 billion kroner.

So the project is not only about getting more tourists to experience how wonderful Bornholm is even when the calendar doesn't rhyme with swimming trunks and cold ice cream, but also about creating more jobs and increased revenue.

”You cannot do that by thinking more of the same. We know, after all, that there are towns that tourists seek out on their own, which is why the development plan has special geographical focus areas, with towns such as Hasle, Åkirkeby, Nexø, and the central part of the island as focus areas, says Christa Lodahl.

The collaboration with Destination Bornholm is very much about knowledge sharing and ensuring that we work with overarching initiatives, but also with individual businesses and their development, which is precisely the role of Business Center Bornholm.

”We need to work with the relevant businesses and together clarify the businesses” potentials and opportunities, and draw up action plans with goals and sub-goals that make it straightforward for the businesses to execute on the goals. Each individual business is unique, and therefore the trajectories will also be individually tailored, taking all our knowledge and experience from the project ”Restart Business at Street Level" over into this project.

We have an expectation of working towards businesses having a greater understanding of tourism flows, where Destination Bornholm collects a lot of useful data which is valuable knowledge when working with your own business. It can be something very down-to-earth, like a café that closes at 5 pm, but the data shows that there are many tourists in the local area from 6 pm to 8 pm. Destination Bornholm has that kind of data, but we must ensure to an even greater extent that individual businesses also use data in the way they develop their business. Therefore, they are a key partner for us in that development process, she says.