Recent years showed that more and more stakeholders see strong benefits of having sustainable mobility as an integral part of their holiday experience. Cycling and active mobility in tourism are booming, more railway companies rethink their train business also for tourists including night trains, new interactive solutions make it easier for customers to use different kind of mobility services. Also, the awareness of customers is changing. More and more people are conscious about climate change and reconsider their travel behaviour. The provision of a smooth, efficient, safe, secure and enjoyable travel experience from a traveller’s residence to a destination and within the destinationis is a pre-condition to benefit from this new trend.
A large number of stakeholders need to be involved and to work together to achieve this result along the entire travel chain,. A task that individual enterprises or even destinations can not take on alone. The responsible bodies at national level - e.g. the ministries - need to assume a coordinating role.
This is why the Austrian Federal Ministry of Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology and the Austrian Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Regions and Tourism launched the new THE PEP Partnership on Sustainable Tourism Mobility. The partnership was officially launched at the fifth High Level Meeting on Transport, Health and Environment in Vienna, on 18 May 2021.
With this initiative the Austrian ministries are building on the experience from past transnational projects (such as Transdanube, Access2Mountain, Last Mile, Transdanube.Pearls) and the current Transdanube Travel Stories project. In these projects innovative destinations clearly positioned themselves as environmentally friendly travel destinations.
Main objectives of the partnership
- Raise awareness for sustainable multimodal mobility to achieve a sustainable tourism development at national and international level
- Strengthen the cooperation between relevant stakeholders of different levels and sectors committed to provide sustainable mobility to tourists and inhabitants
- Increase the institutional capacity of the relevant organizations to develop, implement and operate sustainable mobility services
- Contribute to the development of climate-friendly, convenient and attractive mobility services and offers for travellers and inhabitants.
What can interested countries expect from the partnership?
- A platform for cooperation in the pan-European region amongst Member States, their national authorities, destinations and other actors like tourism operators, transport companies and mobility providers
- Exchanging experience and good practices from the countries of the pan-European region including training sessions, organize study visits and networking workshops
- Developing policy guidelines for green and healthy sustainable mobility in tourism
- Facilitating the development of national strategies and platforms for sustainable mobility in tourism
- Elaborating toolkits /manuals for member states on how to implement sustainable tourism mobility solutions
- Developing and implementing joint Projects following of the examples of Alpsmobility Alpine Pearls and Trandanube Pearls Transdanube travel stories.
If you are interested to join forces in sustainable tourism mobility please get in touch with Andreas Friedwagner, who is coordinating the work of the partnership on behalf of the Austrian ministries.
- Andreas Friedwagner: a.friedwagner[at]verracon.at I +43 664 2412924
Meetings
- Sustainable Mobility for Sustainable Tourism, Nicosia, 6 October 2022
- THE PEP meeting of the Partnership on Sustainable Tourism Mobility, Utrecht and The Hague Netherlands, 25-26 January 2023
- Meeting of THE PEP Partnership on Sustainable Tourism, Vienna, 24-25 April 2023