High-ranking representatives of tourism policy and tourism practice from Berlin and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern visit the German Institute for Tourism Research

Reinhard Meyer, Minister of Economics, Infrastructure, Tourism and Labor of the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and honorary president of the Deutscher Tourismusverband, visited the DI Tourismusforschung at FH Westküste University of Applied Sciences in Heide on 25 August to find out about the institute’s activities and to discuss current tourism issues with tourism researchers. He was accompanied by Gunnar Bauer, Head of the Tourism Department of the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Tobias Woitendorf, Tourism Commissioner of the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Managing Director of the local tourism association, and Anne Seifert, who is responsible for quality and sustainability at the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Tourism Association. After welcoming the guests by Prof. Dr. Thomas Wiemers, Vice President of FH Westküste University of Applied Sciences, the Director of DI Tourismusforschung, Prof. Dr. Bernd Eisenstein, first gave an overview of the various research areas of the institute and emphasized how important the exchange with stakeholders in tourism practice is for him and his team. This is the only way to ensure that the Institute’s research work contributes to current issues and challenges in the industry and that the impetus provided there can be taken up for new projects. In this context, he referred to the wide range of projects that DI Tourismusforschung has recently developed and implemented in close cooperation with the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Tourist Board and the Deutscher Tourismusverband. Based on his many years of experience, Reinhard Meyer emphasized how important he believes the exchange between science and practice is and that research activities are indispensable for sustainable and successful destination and tourism development. He was supported by Tobias Woitendorf, who pointed out that it was becoming increasingly difficult for the tourism industry to engage in the important exchange with tourism science and, in particular, application-oriented research, especially against the background of a decreasing number of tourism chairs at public universities. At Reinhard Meyer’s request, the tourism researchers then presented three of the institute’s current projects. As part of various studies on tourism acceptance, a scale was developed to measure how the local population perceives and evaluates the impact of tourism on their place of residence. The finding that tourism is often perceived as an economic factor, but it is rarely recognized that it can also contribute to the quality of life of the inhabitants, prompted the researchers to conduct a study on the influence of tourism on the quality of life of the local population. The results of a pilot study were presented, according to which tourism acceptance is an important factor influencing quality of life, along with other aspects, as well as initial results for Mecklenburg-Vorpommern from a second, recently completed quality of life study. The studies on tourism acceptance and quality of life are accompanied by the Deutscher Tourismusverband and carried out with the participation of the federal state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, so that the results presented led to a lively discussion among the participants of the meeting about the perspective of residents in destination development.

The third project presented was the mobility study by DI Tourismusforschung, which examines the attitudes of Germans towards private and business mobility over time and under the influence of factors such as the Covid-19 pandemic and the energy crisis. After a concluding exchange on possible further approaches to cooperation between the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Tourism Association and the Deutscher Tourismusverband with DI Tourismusforschung, Prof. Dr. Bernd Eisenstein and Prof. Dr. Thomas Wiemers thanked the visitors for the interest shown and the stimulating discussions. In the spirit of the indispensable cooperation between politics, business and science, all participants agreed to continue the professional exchange on a regular basis in the future.