Energetic tourism: Exploring the experience quality of renewable energies as a new sustainable tourism market

Abstract

To tackle the global problem of climate change, it will be crucial that the global economic system adopts energy-saving measures and furthers its reliance on renewable energy sources. This challenge is particularly relevant for the tourism industry, which depends on transportation by definition, and is highly dependent on resources and energy in many other regards. Tourism can quickly be caught in a vicious cycle: the necessity to adapt to climate change, i.e. by increasing artificial snow making, or new product development as exemplified by the "wellness-boom", leads to ever higher rates of energy consumption, thus further contributing to climate change. However, the fledgling human explorations towards combating climate change and increasing energy efficiency also offer innovative opportunities for exploring new niches of tourism. This paper presents how such novel tourism opportunities avail themselves around the theme of renewable and sustainable energy use. Combining environmental education and experiencing novel products can be used for marketing a fundamentally new tourism product, which attracts both the technologically interested tourism segment and the family-oriented traveler. This may lead to positive perception of climate change adaptation strategies. A summary of "model" energy regions in Central Europe describes the typical characteristics that regions must have for possibly developing these innovative tourism niches. The main focus of the paper is on "eco-energy region" of Guessing, Burgenland, which is involved in an on-going transnational research project -for sustainable tourism development in Central Europe (Interreg IVB). The area around Austria's only energy self sufficient city (Güssing) is situated in a nature park at the eastern foothills of the Alps. Due to the mild climate this region is a part of the so called "Austrian Tuscany". Multicultural influences by the proximity to Hungary, Slovenia and Slovakia are reflected by various cultural, especially culinary experiences. Due to its location along the former iron curtain, the region has remained fairly remote and is not recognized as a tourism destination. However, with the eco-energy project of Guessing gaining world-wide recognition, it became obvious that in addition to the business and conference driven energy tourism, an opportunity for a leisure oriented tourism development also availed itself. This paper presents the innovative strategies that the region will focus on in order to expand to a more complete and sustainable energy-tourism destination. © 2010 WIT Press.