The 5th themed evening hosted by Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences took place on May 26, 2016, at the premises located at Straße der Glasmacher 8 in Weißwasser under the title“Tourism in Lausitz—Ideas for the Future.”
Katrin Treffkorn, a research associate at the TRAWOS Institute, served as the evening’s moderator and welcomed the keynote speakers and guests from the WSW municipal administration, the Görlitz District Office, the Neißeland Regional Tourism Association, the Lausitz Technology Center, the Lausitz Economic Initiative (Wil), as well as tourism providers from Weißwasser and the surrounding area.
To begin, Frank Schwarzkopf presented the long-standing responsibilities of the City Association’s tourism information office in WSW, recent developments in the tourism sector, and the industrial heritage sites of the past few years. While tourism in Weißwasser is not an economic giant, it does represent a real and important economic factor, according to Schwarzkopf. Tourism, however, consists not only of vacationers who cycle through the city and the surrounding area, ride the forest railway, explore the Braunsteich Landscape Conservation Area or the UNESCO Upper Lusatian Pondsand heathland, but also encompasses “all activities of people who travel to places outside their usual surroundings and stay there for leisure, business, or certain other purposes for no longer than one year without interruption,” Schwarzkopf emphasized. The UNESCO certificate recently awarded to the Muskauer Faltenbogen Geopark once again recognizes the joint efforts with partners from the surrounding region. This means that there are now a total of three UNESCO-certified landscapes in the vicinity of WSW (the Bad Muskau Park World Cultural Heritage Site and the Upper Lusatian Heath and Pond Landscape World Natural Heritage Site), confirming their supraregional significance. A central cross-border tourism hub at the WSW train station—serving as an accessible arrival and distribution point for guests from near and far in the region—is therefore one of the stated development goals for the coming years, to be realized in collaboration with German and Polish partners.
International, national, and regional trends—such as the growing demand to go beyond mere tourism products and services and increasingly create sensory experiences—are also taken into account. Prof. Ute Pflicke from the Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences then elaborated on this when she presented the INNO-Tour project—innovation networks for the development of regional, cross-provider concepts and innovative products for small and medium-sized enterprises in cultural and health tourism. This is because the region possesses significant potential in the form of many small businesses in the fields of experiential, cultural, and health tourism. However, these businesses often lack the capacity to develop and sustainably establish new products. The current research project therefore aims to connect the potential of these businesses; as well as with the corresponding educational and research capabilities of the HSZG in the fields of tourism, cultural, and Health Management, in order to make global innovative development trends in the leisure and tourism industry more accessible and easier to utilize—both for individual companies and for the region as a whole—through cross-provider exchange of experiences and knowledge transfer.
Today’s potential for innovation in the tourism sector lies primarily in establishing and strengthening trusting cooperative relationships between complementary tourism providers, so that, through the exchange of knowledge and the sharing of investment risks, they can improve the quality of products and services and sustainably enhance the destination’s appeal, Pflicke emphasizes in her remarks, offering active collaboration with the university’s Tourism Management department.
So-called employer associations represent a very practical form of cooperative partnerships—including among tourism companies—in the area of human resources. By flexibly combining the specific needs of the participating companies, stable, year-round employment can be created collectively in the region, and more attractive working conditions can help retain qualified employees in the long term, explains Sigrid Wölfing from the tamen Development Office for Work and Environment in Berlin, who has been supporting such business consortia throughout Germany for years, in the third keynote presentation of the evening.
The subsequent exchange of experiences among the attendees regarding legal hurdles (such as the Employer Assignment Act) in overcoming current difficulties confirmed that this can also serve as a practical innovation strategy for tourism professionals in Lausitz to ensure quality standards, offering skilled workers long-term career development prospects here, and thereby promoting the region’s appeal not only as a tourist destination but also as an economic hub with attractive work and living prospects.
Gregor Schneider from the WSW Planning Workshop introduced the subsequent discussion with an explanation of the tourism aspects from the “Future City Concept 2035,” recently adopted by the WSW City Council, which deliberately takes into account the 360° region surrounding WSW. Attractively connected via “smart” infrastructure, WSW—as an “oasis in the outback”—fosters a culture of empowerment and becomes the vibrant center of a multifaceted region nestled between post-mining landscapes, industrial heritage, and UNESCO World Heritage sites, according to the vision. This can become a reality if regional cooperation is deepened, economic structural change is proactively shaped, and WSW, as a gateway and hub, pools expertise and information while strengthening its network as a trusted partner. Schneider succinctly summarizes the recommendations for action developed by the planning workshop.
The numerous, as-yet-unachieved goals of tourism development concepts and tourism marketing structures at the county level that are too detached from practical reality—with information provided by participants during the detailed discussion—make it clear that not only structural obstacles but also mental barriers must be overcome.

Those present expressed great interest in further pursuing the topic of sustainable tourism development in the region and in initiating practical collaborations and strategic partnerships in the region’s tourism sector. A continuous, practical exchange between various tourism and municipal stakeholders—to get to know and recognize one another as potential partners, build trust in their shared potential, and develop cooperative strategies together— however, forms the foundation that the WSW—as a central hub in the implementation of its tourism strategy—should not only take into account but also proactively pursue.
A university-sponsored thematic evening can serve merely as a stimulating impetus for this, one that could be repeated on this topic at a later date.

Author:

Katrin Treffkorn