Tyrol on rails

Brigitte Hainzer: With the "Tirol on Rail" project, Tirol Werbung once again had a good nose for tackling an issue that all tourism professionals will have to deal with sooner or later.

The majority of guests in the Alpine region travel by car. The journey to and from the destination accounts for the largest proportion of CO2 emissions during a vacation. Our roads are at the limits of their capacity during peak season, and guests and locals are annoyed by traffic jams and poor air quality. A further increase in arrivals means a further increase in the volume of traffic with the same mobility behavior. Then there are the day trippers and locals who also like to relax in the mountains. And this brings us to the second aspect of the topic: nature is the basis of our tourism offer. If this is destroyed, we will not only suffer as locals, the "Heart of the Alps" will also lose its appeal for locals.

A few years ago, Tirol Werbung began to look into the question of why only 5% of guests travel by train and where to start in order to increase these figures. It found committed partners in ÖBB, DB and SBB, with whom it joined forces in the "Tirol on Rail" project. The first measure was to improve Tyrol's connections to Central European cities by increasing frequencies and optimizing connections, e.g. from Vienna and Munich across the entire Inntal valley to the Arlberg. The takeover of the Nightjet trains and the reintroduction of the motorail trains by ÖBB are also examples of successful measures. Passenger numbers have risen, particularly from Austria and Italy to Tyrol, and encouraging increases have also been recorded from Germany.

This offer should convince more guests to leave their cars at home in future. As the hosts have direct contact with the guests, "mobility coaching" was developed. I have been on the road as a "mobility coach" in the Tyrolean regions since 2015 and inform hosts - from large hotels to farm vacations - about how to get there, the last mile and local mobility offers.

Brigitte Hainzer: The biggest challenge in the project is "getting to" the hosts. Their working day is long and their tasks are varied. Of course, some people ask themselves "Do I also have to take care of my guests' travel arrangements?" and "What does she want from me? Maybe sell something?". When making appointments for mobility coaching, the "landlord coaches", who now exist in almost all Tyrolean TVBs, are therefore an important door opener. Once this hurdle has been overcome, I can only report positive results: the hosts are grateful for the helpful information. Regardless of whether they were very open-minded or rather negative about the topic, everyone was able to take away valuable information and everyone realizes how important it is to give guests an orientation on how to get to them without a car and what options are available locally if you leave your car behind. If you don't do this, you leave a valuable portion of potential new guests "on the street".

Brigitte Hainzer : Over the three years that I have been working as a mobility coach, I have been able to build up a wealth of knowledge that I am happy to pass on. The first step is to make the mobility offers visible, i.e. to prepare them and pass them on to the landlords. However, local exchanges often also reveal weaknesses and ideas from hosts. This information is in turn passed on to the partners - Tirol Werbung, TVB, railroad partners and the VVT or IVB - and is used to further develop and optimize the offer.

The fact that the majority of the Tyrolean TVBs are now involved also creates an exchange of ideas - successful ideas and experiences are shared and issues that the region itself cannot solve can be tackled at a higher level.