Sustainable Destination Management
Strategies in the OIC Member Countries
110
Area Lessons Learned
Corridor Planning and
Establishment
Infrastructure development is a key factor in corridor
development; too long transit times or too complicated connections
from A to B hinder the arrival of tourists. Despite its importance, it
is not part of the fundamental mission of the Danube Competence
Center, nor at the center of most EU projects; but rather depends
on the investments of the different countries themselves.
Corridor development requires cross-border coordination on
different levels, such as product development, unification of
standards, complementarity of products, operations - which can
imply cooperation between hotels, tour operators or coach
companies; national tourism organizations, in areas such as
marketing, creation of a facilitating framework and transportation
companies, buses and trains, airlines in addition it requires
synchronization between these different players, as for example in
the Danube Travel Trade Master Class.
In the countries of the Middle and Lower Danube, often, the basics
are in place, but tourist services, support infrastructure, and human
resources lack the level of quality and consistency required for
international source markets. Details like missing public
bathrooms, lack of signage along roads, or tourist sites, although
comparatively trivial, do hinder tourism development.
The importance of the Danube in each country is very different,
correspondingly the resources available for tourism development
along the Danube vary substantially. This leads to the phenomenon
of tourism hubs, or tourism hotspots, along the Danube, which
represent a certain clustering of attractions and services and come
in different flavors and dimensions - this is the driving dynamics
rather than one consistent corridor.
Governance In terms of governance, different legal frameworks are not easily
unified and require flexible, case-by-case strategies to facilitate
cross-border tourism in practice. Overarching efforts such as data
harmonization require the development of structures and
institutionalization in to work and to be effective. This alignment
does not just happen - the desired outcomes need to be facilitated
and brokered in a proactive and continuous manner to eventually
materialize.
On a local level, stakeholders organize themselves in the contexts
of projects through working communities, task groups, and product
clubs, addressing the issues at hand in a flexible way. These can be
attached to or embedded within existing structures on the
subnational level (like the Business Support Centre for Small and
Medium Enterprises in Ruse, Bulgaria, or the Lake Neusiedl DMO in