the North Sea region. Over all 18.7 million overnight stays are recorded as well as 12.8 million daily visitors. Approximately 9.000 people in the North Sea region are working in the tourist sector. North Sea tourism in the Wadden Sea National Park area The surveillance of the national park area is hard to manage for the National Park Administration. The number of tourists is too big; the area of the national park too large and the number of employees responsible for supervising tourists is too low. Additionally tourists do not have a few main entrances as in other German national parks, but the entrances to the Wadden Sea National Park are large in number through the dike areas. The National Park Administration cooperates with local communities and nature conservation organisations to close the surveillance gap. Most of the time tourists who are visiting the national park stay out of the park itself. Normally the groups of tourists entering the national park are guided walking tours in the mudflat areas. The number of private walking tours is unknown. On the other hand the number of guided walking tours reached a maximum of 5.900 tours with a total of 149.000 participants attending in 2016, a number which has not been reached since 1999. Around 2/3 of the tours are guided and organised by members of the Wadden Sea Conservation Station. The remainder are guided by professional mudflat guides. National Park tourism It is unknown to which degree the status of the national park increased the number of tourists in the North Sea region. Compared to administrative districts which are not located adjacent to the national park region, the increasing rate of tourists in administrative districts adjacent to the Wadden Sea National Park is not significantly higher. However in 2014 17% of the people making a vacation in the North Sea area decided to go there because of the national park, suggests the SÖM report. These tourists generate a net product of 89 Million euros which is the income equivalent of 4741 people. As a part of the INTERREG IV B-project PROWAD another survey was made asking people to which degree the status of a national park influenced their decision during vacation planning to travel to the North Sea region. About 44% answered that they think the conservation of the Wadden Sea was a "very important" or an "important" factor for choosing their