Podium place for sustainable tourism destination Bremerhaven
Bremerhaven emerges from the federal competition "Sustainable Tourism Destinations 2022/23" with third place in the field of "starters". "Today's placing is already the second award for our tourism strategy after the silver cup in the "Access City Award" 2021 and testifies to the excellent work of all those involved," emphasises Bremerhaven's Lord Mayor Melf Grantz. As the only city in the circle of finalists, Bremerhaven scored particularly well for the expert jury with its accessibility offerings. "Today's award will make us even more visible as a sustainable tourism destination in a nationwide comparison," adds Ralf Meyer, head of the Department of Business, Tourism and Science, which wrote the application in close cooperation with Erlebnis Bremerhaven. "We take the ranking as a welcome tailwind in our daily activities to further promote sustainable travel," André Lomsky, Managing Director of Erlebnis Bremerhaven GmbH, is also pleased with the result in the demanding and multi-stage competition. The competition was organised for the third time by the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection (BMUV), the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) and the German Tourism Association (DTV). The award ceremony was held in Berlin by Federal Environment Minister Steffi Lemke.
In its statement, the jury emphasises that Bremerhaven is characterised by a successful link between worlds of knowledge and experience and an awareness of the issues of climate change, biodiversity and migration. The investments in smart technologies, with which the city is also to be strengthened as a sustainable conference location, are also praised. The jury further emphasises: "Particularly convincing is the commitment to make the tourist offer accessible to as many people as possible and to make barrier-free offers and holiday inspirations more visible."
Overall, the jury was impressed by Bremerhaven's actions to date: The city has been actively working to become barrier-free since 2017. Building on the expert report on "Barrier-free tourism in the seaside city of Bremerhaven", for example, 34 tourist businesses are currently certified according to the nationwide standardised concept "Travel for All". Tactile models and specially prepared graphic tourist city maps are aimed specifically at people with disabilities, but also convince all other guests. At the on-site visit in May, the jury was convinced by the extent to which the Klimahaus, for example, takes up important aspects of sustainability and communicates them in an understandable way. The teams of Erlebnis Bremerhaven GmbH and the Department of Economics, Tourism and Science also succeeded in credibly communicating the investment in innovative, smart technologies and "green offers" ("Smart Green Meetings") agreed upon for meetings and conventions (Mice). The Atlantic Hotel SAIL City, which has made both the meeting area and the hotel operation holistically sustainable, is already a pioneer.
Other efforts around the topic of sustainability were also included in the overall assessment: Among other things, Bremerhaven cited measures to promote environmentally friendly leisure mobility by bicycle, such as thematically guided tours on the city's maritime cultural heritage and a tour on the topic of the energy transition, which is still being implemented, as evidence of the sustainable orientation of the tourism concept.