Qingdao Fragrant Hills Tourism Summit 2018 Exclusive Interview: Wonderful Copenhagen, A Liveable and Sustainable Destination

For Wonderful Copenhagen, the WTCF provides a forum for gaining much-needed inspiration from destinations across the world, as well as introducing new global travel trends and key players of the travel market, both among destinations, booking platforms, media and transportation.

“Temporary locals” in Copenhagen

You and me, we are tourists, when we travel. Tourists are all kinds of people, just like us. And, much like people, tourists come in all shapes and sizes, with all kinds of preferences and interests. A city destination therefore needs to offer a variety of diverse experiences that speaks to different interests, different modes of travelling and experiencing. As a city, we need to make this both accessible and ‘experience-able’ to visitors.

Many visitors come to Copenhagen to experience the atmosphere of the city, that special something that makes Copenhagen stand out and offers visitors a sense of a unique ‘somewhere’, rather than just anywhere. In our 2020-strategy, we paraphrase tourists as ‘temporary locals’, which both reflects our way of working with what the destination offers as well as the visitors that we see coming to Copenhagen. There’s something for everyone in Copenhagen and as a traveller, you should also venture outside the beaten track – as the different neighborhoods of our city all offer different experiences and atmospheres.

There are many different methods to access these experiences – for one, follow our Instagram, Weibo or Wechat (@visitcopenhagen) profiles for good tips. Also, the Copenhagen Card is really the most convenient and affordable way to experience our many attractions, both inside and outside of the city centre – with free access to 86 attractions and free public transportation (https://copenhagencard.com/).

City’s image builds up visitors’ motivation and expectations

Through strong efforts from multiple stakeholders, Copenhagen has built a strong city image as a liveable and sustainable destination, which is also actively used in the city’s promotional efforts. This city’s liveability is also at the core of Copenhagen exhibitions and event as the official guest city of this year’s Beijing Design Week from September 26th to October 5th in Beijing, where Copenhagen will share the best of our city – including the Copenhagen lifestyle, culture and sustainable urban development.

A city’s image builds up visitors’ motivation as well as expectations of a destination, which is why it is very important that the city image is actually accessible to experience. For Copenhagen, this is reflected in our core brand stories that highlights the strongholds of sustainable living, including the clean harbor baths, the food culture with a strong focus on local produce, the biking culture and urban design that facilitates and supports the liveability of the local Copenhageners – both the temporary and permanent ones.

The many components of this city image attract interest every year from international thought leaders, media and travellers. In 2018, for example, CNN has identified Copenhagen as one of the best cities in the world for swimming, reflecting both the city’s proximity to the ocean, but also the clean harbor baths in the inner city.

Tourism will be a means to create a liveable city for all locals

We are in an era of change for tourism. In Copenhagen, we declared “the end of tourism - as we know it” in our 2020-strategy, because we believe it is time to welcome a new era of localhood – an era, where tourism can become a driver of positive change for the cities, where tourism no longer works as an isolated industry bubble and where tourism growth is not a goal in itself, but also a means to create a liveable city for all locals – the permanent and temporary ones. To fulfill the promise of this new era, tourism faces a paradigm shift and DMOs across the globe will share similar challenges of facing many new stakeholders, new measures of success and not least, new sustainable requirements. Wonderful Copenhagen is already an active part in multiple international partnerships and cooperative fora, including the WTCF, ECM and ICCA. In the future, such international fora and partnerships will be key to sharing knowledge & insights, best practice (and worst!) to support the movement across the tourism industry as a whole.

WTCF events provide an opportunity to share

Copenhagen has been an active part of the WTCF 2nd Council for two years – attending the 3rd meeting in Qingdao at the 2018 Summit, as well as the inaugural meeting of the Cruise Committee of WTCF in 2016.

WTCF events provide an opportunity to share knowledge and ideas with colleagues from all over the world, bringing back home best practice and possibilities of joint efforts within research and market insights as well as access to key players within both the Chinese and global tourism markets.