If the work continues at a fast pace, you will soon be able to pack up your bags and enjoy a nice holiday in the new tourist complex they are building in the town of Grömitz in northern Germany. On the Baltic coast. Its promoters are selling it with great fanfare as a paradise with sand dunes, a water park, restaurants, shops and a range of services designed for the enjoyment of visitors. Not everyone sees it that way.

There are those who fear that the region could change, that it could succumb to mass tourism and that a holiday in the Baltic could cease to be synonymous with relaxation and peace. They fear that it could become, as they put it, “the German Mallorca”.

What’s going on in Grömtiz? They form Dünenpark, a mega-complex designed to attract visitors with waterfront buildings and pavilions, playgrounds, shops, restaurants, a beach club and even a water and adventure park. According to the newspaper, excavators arrived at the site three years ago, in the summer of 2021. Hamburger Morgen PostThe complex will gradually take shape in the coming months.

Moving forward. In May 2023, the Surf Rescue Club was ready and work was progressing. For example, in the last few days, workers have been focusing on the insulation and air-conditioning of the Beach Club. At least in 2023, there were predictions that the mega project would be completed with the opening of the Dünenwelten in early summer 2025. The aim of all this is to become a major tourist reference point for the Bay of Lübeck on the Baltic Sea.

A holiday in the Baltic. Grömitz’s claim is quite logical. Although many Germans prefer the Mediterranean coast when planning their holidays, especially the beaches and islands of southern Spain, there are also those who prefer the North and Baltic Seas. I pointed him out Hamburger Newsletter Already in 2021, in the midst of the pandemic, many tourists had no choice but to rethink their holidays and opt for national destinations. In spots like St Peter-Ording or Grömitz they found coastline, sandy beaches and mild temperatures, around 20 degrees this week for example.

But his “shooting” was before the pandemic. According to Hamburger AbendlattBetween 1995 and 2019, the flow of guests staying in Schelswig-Holstein, where Grömitz is located, doubled to 4.6 million. “And the trend towards getaways and staycations continues,” said Guido Zöllick, chairman of the Dehoga Hotel and Restaurant Association at the time.

Does everyone see this as positive? No. There are those who view the changes with concern. The clearest example of this was a year ago, when German website Moin.de asked people familiar with the area what they thought of Grömitz’s new megaproject. The most relevant response, and one that best summed up the fears of overcrowding on the Baltic coast, came from a woman: “It’s a shame that Grömitz is increasingly becoming a German Mallorca. I always thought it was. It’s nice that things are a bit calmer.”

And he concluded: “Does everything have to be designed for the masses?”

The effects of “Tourism”. The comparison with Mallorca is not entirely new. Already at the end of 2021 Hamburger Abendbalt He began his report on the changing trends in German tourism and the growing success of the country’s northern coast with an equally revealing and telling title: “The North Sea and the Baltic Sea. Are the coasts becoming the new Mallorca?”

The changes accompanying the tourist phenomenon have also affected the real estate market, for example: if a holiday apartment in Timmerdorfen Stand, another Baltic coastal town, cost around 80,000 euros in 2011, it would be the same price ten years later. The “Beauty of the North” could quickly triple in value. Another city in the north where prices have risen significantly is Hamburg, another port city.

Image | Deyvis Tejada (Flickr)

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*A previous version of this article was published in August 2023.