Garden Pearls

The project aimed at diversifying the garden tourism offer in Estonia and Latvia by creating an attractive and sustainable garden tourism product and service Garden Pearls. During 2018-2020, the partners created the joint tourism product and brand by involving 76 gardens/parks to the cross-border network that follows jointly set criteria.

The partners achieved the set sub-objectives. They:

1) obtained a full overview of professionally maintained gardens and parks that enables to set principles for product and service design and create solid identity and concept for the routes.

2) equalized the quality and attractiveness of Garden Pearls’ sites by carrying out small-scale investments in parks and gardens (minor improvements in parks and gardens to be fully functional and visitor friendly sites).
3) increased visibility of our natural heritage by joint branding and promotion of the gardens and parks as Garden Pearls.
4) increased the knowledge about importance of special interest tourism (e.g. garden tourism) and possibilities of increasing visitor numbers.
5) prolonged the tourism season in destinations, since garden related activities often take place in spring and autumn.

The new product was promoted at international markets (Lithuania, Poland, Finland) and at local markets of Estonia and Latvia. By disseminating the maps, also German and Russian markets were approached.

By April 2021, the project promotion had reached over 2.4 million potential visitors.

Information about the Garden Pearls network is shared actively in social media. The project website includes comprehensive information about all the sites of the Garden Pearls network.