Alpine Awareness: That\'s for You! -how to mobilise the populations towards soft travel in the Alps

What is the ALPINE AWARENESS project

Alpine Awareness is a project co-financed by ERDF

That's for You!

	The mountains are not an ordinary place… People live there by tradition. They go there for the exceptional living environment. With increased free time, it is a place that is frequently and massively visited by car. Such are the visitor numbers in certain places and at certain times that they compromise the survival of hitherto unspoilt sites, precisely sought after for that, or the corresponding economic activity (for example, physical saturation of car parks, turning away customers at ski lifts, etc.). Although hitherto it was therefore possible to more or less ignore the travel issue, tourism and travel professionals, but also companies in general, are increasingly having to deal with the necessity of setting up a new organisation compatible with their living environment and businesses. For the first stage in this reflection, local players, companies, tourism and travel professionals need to think, with the territorial authorities, about the development project they envisage. Is it realistically possible to accept limitless travel induced by constantly growing tourism? Should tourism be regulated in some way to ensure its survival and high quality service? Solutions can be found by drafting aCompany Travel Planfor example which may propose: -optimisation of the existing situation. Often local players have not recently tackled the issue of adapting travel modes and their corresponding infrastructure. For example do transport lines correspond with needs? Are stops well positioned? Could times be redefined for better connections? etc. Are parking spaces really necessary where they are? Should they be payable? -Certain improvements in cooperation with local authorities (road safety work to make walking or cycling easier). -making young people aware of the issue, -setting up training on non-polluting travel for companies, -informing the population. © F. Neumayr top of page

The mountains are not an ordinary place… People live there by tradition. They go there for the exceptional living environment. With increased free time, it is a place that is frequently and massively visited by car. Such are the visitor numbers in certain places and at certain times that they compromise the survival of hitherto unspoilt sites, precisely sought after for that, or the corresponding economic activity (for example, physical saturation of car parks, turning away customers at ski lifts, etc.).

Although hitherto it was therefore possible to more or less ignore the travel issue, tourism and travel professionals, but also companies in general, are increasingly having to deal with the necessity of setting up a new organisation compatible with their living environment and businesses.

For the first stage in this reflection, local players, companies, tourism and travel professionals need to think, with the territorial authorities, about the development project they envisage. Is it realistically possible to accept limitless travel induced by constantly growing tourism? Should tourism be regulated in some way to ensure its survival and high quality service?

Solutions can be found by drafting aCompany Travel Planfor example which may propose:

-optimisation of the existing situation. Often local players have not recently tackled the issue of adapting travel modes and their corresponding infrastructure. For example do transport lines correspond with needs? Are stops well positioned? Could times be redefined for better connections? etc. Are parking spaces really necessary where they are? Should they be payable?

-Certain improvements in cooperation with local authorities (road safety work to make walking or cycling easier).

-making young people aware of the issue,

-setting up training on non-polluting travel for companies,

-informing the population.

© F. Neumayr

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