Qingdao Fragrant Hills Tourism Summit 2018 Exclusive Interview: Dresden Seeds Beauty in Your Heart

Cultural City and Green City

Dresden with 540.000 inhabitants is one of the important cultural cities in Central Europe and like this a cross point of different European Cultures, Traditions and Fashions in many ways. It has an important impact on the European history of music with composers like Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Weber, Wagner, Schumann, Rachmaninoff, Richard Strauss living and working or performing here. Its artworks reflect a global curiosity of the former Saxon Court and are among the most important in the world. The cultural live in music, arts and theatre is comparable to much bigger metropolises.

Tourists who attend this rich cultural life become part of this and have the chance to get in contact with locals or during the performance or afterwards having a glass of wine or beer in the many restaurants, pubs or bars in the vibrant parts of the city.

Dresden is also a green city, surrounded by the beautiful Elbland. This combination of city and countryside with small towns, romantic castles, natural woods and beautiful landscapes makes Dresden an ideal destination.

Rebirth From the Ruins

In the 19th and early 20th century Dresden already was a popular tourist destination especially for German, Russian, Scandinavian and British visitors. After its destruction in 1945, Dresden firstly was rebuilt as a Socialist model city. Until 1989 due to the political division of Germany Dresden was only destination for domestic tourism with the neighboring countries. The first 5 star hotel was opened only in 1985 with the reopening of the Semperoper.

After 1990 Dresden had to reinvent itself. In the last 25 years a complete new touristic infrastructure had to be created – using the cultural roots of the preceding centuries and integrating the heritage of the Socialist time. Even more challenging was the development of Dresden as a touristic brand. After 1945 for more 45 years Dresden was the symbol of the destructions of WW II – attracting some historians and school groups. Now, Dresden has more than 25.000 hotel bed, counting 4,5 Million overnight stays a year, and a rich infrastructure not only in the hotel segment but also in the many cultural hot spots and places for leisure activities. Tourism Marketing for the city of Dresden has meant not only to company Dresden’s urban development but also to completely change the image of Dresden: showing the bright side of our city, the immense variety of touristic offers for almost all target groups – and this in an honest and convincing way.

A good way to underline this offer has been the integration of the Elbland in a common brand “Dresden Elbland” which started 2 years ago.

Integration and Partnerships

I know over-tourism is a question which has to be resolved in some of our partner cities. Dresden has far not yet arrived that point, but we already prepare ourselves integrating the surrounding Elbland and nearby touristicaly attractive towns in our marketing activities. This broadens our portfolio and at the same time distributes the visitors out of the center to other interesting places.

Another point is to create more themed based partnerships as addition to the geographical situation to create new routes. We already have good experiences with Polish, Czech and Dutch partners which we would like to deepen and extend.

For us sharing experiences and creating new alliances is an important way to develop not just numbers of overnight stays but also to increase the quality of tourism. Our duty is then to share these experiences with our local partners and providers. We have established already different forums how to distribute and discuss those experiences.

Hiking, cycling, water sports, relaxing (and photogenic) ride of historic means of transport like the oldest paddle steamer fleet in the world, historic steam trains or funiculars create a lot of fun. It’s hard to tell all the possibilities tourist can enjoy in our area.