Exploring Sustainable Tourism in Vienna: A Study Visit Experience

by PhD. Codruța Adina Băltescu
Faculty of Economic Sciences and Business Administration, Transilvania University of Braşov

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Exploring sustainable tourism in Vienna

Tourism is a complex system with growing importance in the world economy. Shaping specialists in sustainable tourism is a basic coordinate for tourism development, and field practice has an important role in this. 

Students in the tourism field are privileged. For them, learning involves not only accumulation of theoretical knowledge, but also an opportunity to visit and make experience of some of the best destinations. Best practices in applying sustainable development measures are better understood when based on direct, personal consumption experiences. Understanding the offer of tourism heritage* represents the foundation for designing exceptional tourist products, that first of all must be seen and experienced in order to be promoted to their full potential. 

*Tourism heritage refers to the elements of cultural, natural, and historical significance that attract visitors to a particular location. It encompasses a wide range of attractions including cultural heritage, historical heritage and natural heritage.

3 days in Vienna for an intensive course on history, culture and sustainable tourism

Students in the tourism field are privileged. For them, learning involves not only accumulation of theoretical knowledge, but also an opportunity to visit and make experience of some of the best destinations.
Best practices in applying sustainable development measures are better understood when based on direct, personal consumption experiences. Understanding the offer of tourism heritage* represents the foundation for designing exceptional tourist products, that first of all must be seen and experienced in order to be promoted to their full potential. 

We chose Vienna because it is recognized as a sustainable tourism destination. The city has made significant efforts to integrate sustainability into its tourism practices, ensuring a balance between economic growth, environmental protection, and social equity.

Sustainable Development of Tourist Destinations: a brief introduction

A sustainable tourist destination adheres to the classic principles of sustainability, which in tourism translates to developing tourist resources that prioritize the ecological, cultural, and social environments. Key indicators of a sustainable destination include the quality and diversity of tourist infrastructure—such as accommodation units, restaurants, cafes, leisure facilities, airports, and their connectivity to the city they serve. Additionally, the quality of public transport infrastructure, the use of renewable energy sources, waste recycling practices, and the organization of events all contribute to the sustainable development of modern tourist destinations (Zoltan, 2024).

Sustainable tourism and digitalization

In recent times, digitization has become a fundamental aspect of the so called “smart cities” with positive effects also on sustainability. By integrating smart city technologies and digitalization, cities can create a more sustainable tourism environment that benefits both visitors and residents, while protecting natural and cultural resources for future generations.
Digital tools not only promote efficiency and sustainability but are also highly valued by both locals and visitors. These tools enable tourists to easily interact with local public services and access both tourist and general information, making them feel like an integral part of the community they are visiting. By leveraging the benefits of digitization, tourist destinations can significantly boost their attractiveness (Marchesani, Masciarelli, and Ceci, 2024).

Sustainable tourism and overtourism

However, sustainable tourism development is also challenged by the growing number of visitors, which can lead to numerous negative effects, primarily associated with overtourism and excessive crowding. To mitigate these issues, measures to limit access to tourist attractions are often implemented with the aim of preserving cultural and historical values. Additionally, efforts to ensure the general well-being of both residents and visitors are constant objectives for stakeholders in tourist destinations.

Vienna, a brief introduction.

Vienna, one of Europe’s largest capitals and the largest city in Central and Eastern Europe, is renowned for its rich history and grandeur. The city is famous for its imposing buildings, palaces, castles, classical music, vibrant culture, and unique atmosphere.

This city is also recognized for offering exceptional living conditions to its residents (Steves, 2017). In 2020, the North American consulting group Resonance named Vienna the greenest metropolis in the world. This prestigious title was awarded after a competition among 50 of the world’s most visited cities, based on nine criteria (www.wien.info).

Vienna topped the list due to its excellence in several areas:

• Parks and Recreation Areas: Approximately 50% of the city’s surface is green space.
• Public Transport: An extremely well-developed network ensures connections from and to any point in the city.
• Waste Recycling: Efficient and comprehensive recycling programs.
• Quality Food Supply: The city is supplied with high-quality food from local farms.
• Pedestrian Conditions: Vienna is considered a “pedestrian paradise.”
  

Traveling to Vienna from Romania is convenient by road, rail, and air. Our group opted for a flight from Bucharest to Vienna, which took about an hour. To ensure our journey was both sustainable and cost-effective, we travelled by train from Brașov to Henri Coandă Airport in Bucharest.

Vienna through the eyes of future tourism specialists from Brașov

First impression. The most important in tourism activities

The first contact with Vienna was with the city’s airport. For some of the participants, traveling by plane was special, being the first experience of its kind. Although the airport is large, it is easy to find your way out, with signs and markers to direct you to the exit. The connection to the city centre can be made by rental car, bus or train. We chose, again, and for the same reasons, the train. Travel by train completed our first impression: numerous ticket machines and a flexible train schedule.

We stayed in a hostel in the Schönbrunn district, chosen for its low rate and location near a subway station. We appreciated the quality/price ratio.

🟢 First evaluation of the destination: very good. We realised, if we didn’t already know, how important is the quality of the infrastructure for evaluating the tourism consumption experience.

Vienna’s historical and cultural values

Exploring a destination includes visiting the most important sights. In this way, the tourist acquires information, knowledge about the history and culture of the visited city/country and, as a consequence, connects with the visited place.
Regardless of the form of tourism, visitors who neglect or skip cultural and historical tourist attractions will always be “repeater” travellers. Some of them do not understand the value of tourist objectives, but with expert advice and help in obtaining access, they will appreciate the added value in their trip. 

Therefore, the tourism specialists must know the attractions extremely well, as their own consuming experience represents the foundation for convincing other travelers.
Thus, our group set out to visit the most important tourist attractions in Vienna. We explored the historic centre of Vienna and admired Schönbrunn and Belvedere palaces. We did not buy entrance tickets. The first and most important motivation was the high prices. The reductions applied for students are low (at most 10%) which was a hurdle we couldn’t overcome.

🔴 The economic barriers for students led us to carry out the following evaluation of the tourist consumption experience: tourist attractions in Vienna do not favour the access of visitors with limited financial resources. Therefore, the second evaluation was negative.

Green spaces in the central areas of the city

Except for the central area of the city, all the other areas that we visited impressed us with the abundance of vegetation. The palace gardens (including the park behind the Hofburg palace), the central park, the green spaces arranged wherever possible, helped us understand why Vienna is considered the greenest metropolis in the world.

The advantages of public transport

In this sector, Vienna excels. The WienMobil mobile app is easy, interactive and the transport offers through the app are excellent. We particularly appreciated the network, ease of travel, frequency and quality of buses/trams.
It is known that, in Brașov, the use of public transport is not an option for a significant part of residents. The difficulty of moving to/from the newly built neighbourhoods by local transport is a reality. Some of the group members expressed, before leaving to Vienna, their intention to rent cars for travelling around the city. Afterwards, they understood that in Vienna the situation is completely different. In the city, car access is limited and parking costs are huge. But we also understood the correctness of these measures.

🟢 The lack of road traffic being a big plus in visiting Vienna, and the following evaluation was positive. This lesson showed us how much tourists appreciate a local, organised and reliable public transport system.

We didn’t completely forget the school

We visited the campus of the Faculty of Economics and Business in Vienna. The easy access by subway encouraged us to make the trip. And we were delighted. Located in a modern district of the city, the campus has several buildings. We were impressed by the uniqueness of the building in which the Library and Learning Center operates, a construction by one of the world’s greatest architecture houses, Zaha Hadid. The interior of the building is also impressive, which has the look of a cruise ship, with many spaces for various teaching and research activities. We noted the application of the principles of sustainable development in the campus organisation. It is worth mentioning the green spaces in the campus, a well-known store from a famous commercial chain, cafes and numerous relaxation spaces.

Conclusions

The intensive course on history, culture and sustainable tourism held in Vienna helped us to better understand the components that underlie the evaluation of tourism consumption experiences. We chose to visit a famous tourist city, awarded for the application of sustainable development practices, starting from the idea that positive examples is the basement for valuable learning. After we returned home we finalised our assessments of Vienna. A very tourist-friendly city, clean and modern, a source of inspiration in the application of good tourism practices.

References

• Marchesani, F., Masciarelli, F. and Ceci, F., 2024. Digital trajectories in contemporary cities: Exploring the interaction between the implementation of digital technology, the amplitude of social media platforms and the flow of tourists in cities. Cities , 146, 104749
• Steves, R., 2017. Eastern Europe, ed. 9th, Perseus Books: Berkeley
• Zoltan, J., 2024. Tourism in net-zero cities. Cities , 152, 105178
• https://www.wien.info/en/livable-vienna/vienna-the-worlds-greenest-city-363882 (Accessed 10.06.2024)