Copenhagen offers tourist rewards as other EU nations clamp down

Copenhagen: In Barcelona visitors have been sprayed with water pistols in an expression of local people’s anger about over-tourism. By contrast in Copenhagen, tourists are to be given financial and other incentives to come – as long as they act responsibly.

The Danish capital appears to be bucking the trend of other travel hotspots struggling under the burden of too many tourists, by attempting to lure only the well-behaved, socially and environmentally conscious traveller.

The national tourist board has introduced a programme to encourage climate-friendly, sustainable behaviour. From Monday, it will reward those who choose to ride a bike, take public transport or undergo a bit of work like gardening or rubbish collection at the harbour or in the city’s parks.

People who turn up with their own reusable coffee cups can expect to receive a free brew at selected venues, while other perks for good behaviour include a complimentary cocktail on a rooftop bar, or extra time spent on the city’s artificial ski slope complex.

“All our choices have an environmental impact, so why not make conscious decisions that benefit us all and be rewarded for them?” the organisers behind CopenPay suggest.

Mikkel Aarø-Hansen of the official tourist board Wonderful Copenhagen said he hoped the idea would act as an inspiration for other cities to adopt as they seek to find a workable way to create a more mutually beneficial and less onerous relationship between tourists and local people.

“We need to ensure that tourism rather than being a burden for the environment is transformed into a power for positive change,” he said. He added that by embracing elements of the so-called experience economy the programme would also encourage more positive encounters between tourists and local people.

“Our core goals are to make travelling more sustainable. We’ll only manage this though if we are able to overcome the big divide between the desire of visitors to behave in a sustainable way and their actual behaviour.” He added that the challenge was “more complicated than it sounds”.

“We want visitors to make more conscious, more climate-friendly decisions and in so doing to hopefully have a more rewarding travel experience,” Aarø-Hansen added.

The “warm welcome” offered by the city, as crooned by Danny Kaye in the eponymous song, should be a given, in contrast to the unwelcome scenes tourists have faced at other destinations that have failed to manage visitor supply and demand, the city’s leaders say.

Barcelona is not the only popular tourist destination to find itself overwhelmed, and with local people taking drastic measures in an attempt to curb or control the travel boom.

Day trippers to Venice now have to pay a new daily tax of €5, while tourists in the old port city of Dubrovnik were recently urged to avoid using rolling suitcases or lift them up, due to the cacophony they make when pulled along the cobbled streets. Mallorca, Ibiza and other Balearic islands meanwhile have introduced tight restrictions on alcohol consumption. Other destinations are experimenting with a range of methods, from entrance fees to restricted visitor zones to control the flow.

CopenPay, which will initially last until 11 August, is being viewed by authorities as something of a pilot project, which could be repeated and expanded if successful. This may in future involve rewarding visitors who take the train rather than the plane to get to Copenhagen.