International workshop by BMAW and OECD on 6/7. June 2024 in Vienna
Vienna (OTS) – Under the title “Building Strong Tourism Destinations”, the Federal Ministry of Labor and Economic Affairs and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) brought together experts from more than 25 nations to shed light on the trends in destination development. Governance structures and the use of data are a particular focus.
“I am very pleased that, together with the OECD, we were able to bring numerous experts from all over the world to Vienna for this knowledge exchange. In turbulent times, it is important that tourism destinations become even more innovative, sustainable and crisis-proof. This requires the right structures and sufficient data for fact-based decisions. Successful tourism must always mean added value for the regions in the future,” said Tourism State Secretary Susanne Kraus-Winkler.
The two-day event will discuss, on the one hand, how sustainability issues can best be addressed at the destination level with the involvement of all stakeholders and the local population. The question is how successful cooperation between different administrative levels and within tourism destinations can be designed. On the other hand, concrete projects from home and abroad are presented that aim to collect, manage and interpret data at the destination level and address the question of how this data can best be used for decision-making processes for future-fit tourism.
“The many exciting initiatives from all over the world confirm the importance of these topics and allow us to think outside the box. Strengthening destinations is also a central concern that we are pursuing with our ‘Plan T – Master Plan for Tourism’ and on the basis of which we are implementing our tourism policy as part of the measures. For example, the Austrian Ecolabel for tourism destinations has been in existence since 2022 as proof of special commitment to sustainability and we measure tourism acceptance annually and throughout Austria – this gives us a continuous picture of the population’s attitude to tourism. In June we will present the ‘RESY Dashboard’ with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture as the result of a joint pilot project on regional information and monitoring systems. It contains a lot of data and indicators at community level, which can also be used by destination managers for tourism developments in the future,” Kraus-Winkler concluded.
The event was organized as part of the OECD Tourism Committee, an international forum of OECD member countries and partner countries for the exchange, monitoring and analysis of tourism policy initiatives. The results of the workshop will be incorporated into the focus on resilience in the current 2023/2024 work program.
Questions & Contact:
Federal Ministry of Labor and Economics
Andrea Gesierich, MA
Press spokesperson for the State Secretary for Tourism
+43 1 71100 6300-43
andrea.gesierich@bmaw.gv.at
https://www.bmaw.gv.at/Tourismus
Federal Ministry of Labor and Economy
Press Department – Economy
press.economy@bmaw.gv.at
https://www.bmaw.gv.at