Finding new ways
Sustainable tourism and environmentally friendly mobility in the Danube Region
With COVID-19, the next holiday seems far away. Enough time though to make plans and get inspired for post-Covid travel. Two new projects of the Umweltbundesamt (Environment Agency Austria) offer ideas about where the journey could go – in terms of destination and means of transport. The aim of the projects is to develop new offers for sustainable tourism in the Danube region, to strengthen cycling and to promote already existing transport offers.
All inclusive: culture, nature and sustainable travel
The Danube region is famous for its impressive natural and cultural sights and therefore a popular travel destination. Tourists already have easy access to many places in the region and can use environmentally friendly transportation to reach their destination, especially the Danube.Pearls – eleven destinations in eight countries that have committed themselves to sustainable tourism. Within the next two and a half years, the Transdanube Travel Stories project will support tourist destinations along the Danube to develop and implement innovative promotion ideas and expand sustainable transport facilities. Under the leadership of the Environment Agency Austria, ten partners from seven European countries will develop new narratives about the Danube macro region, promote these narratives and integrate mobility managers, mobility centres and mobility plans into institutional structures. Furthermore, the project aims to strengthen cooperation between key players and to increase capacity to promote sustainable tourism in the Danube region.
Cycling against climate change
Cycling is resilient, healthy, sustainable and affordable and allows social distancing during Covid-19. This gives new momentum to the Danube Cycle Plans project, which aims at promoting cycling in the Danube region by improving the framework conditions for cyclists. During the period until 2022, experts of the Environment Agency Austria and project partners from eight countries will develop a Danube Cycling Strategy and National Cycling Plans. These instruments are intended to support the provision of adequate cycling infrastructures and to increase stakeholder awareness of cyclist needs as well as capacity to promote cycling in the whole Danube region.
The project is embedded in THE PEP (Transport, Health, Environment Pan-European Programme) and its pan-European Master Plan for Cycling Promotion which provides valuable inputs to the project and vice versa. The project´s outcomes will be taken up at pan-European level.
To transform the mobility behaviour of tourists and citizens, environmentally friendly transport needs to be user-friendly and affordable. Both projects, the Danube Travel Stories and the Danube Cycling plans, help to achieve this goal and provide solutions for clean transport and sustainable tourism.
Transdanube Travel Stories and Danube Cycle Plans are supported by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology, and funded by the EU Interreg "Danube Transnational Programme".
