{"id":28152,"date":"2026-03-01T06:13:48","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T06:13:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/28152\/"},"modified":"2026-03-01T06:13:48","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T06:13:48","slug":"copenhagens-guide-to-sustainable-tourism-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/28152\/","title":{"rendered":"Copenhagen\u2019s guide to sustainable tourism \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cDuring 2024, the Spanish tourism sector experienced its best year since 2019. Its contribution to GDP rose by almost 8% to \u20ac248.7 billion, or 15.6% of the economy. It also employed 3 million people, nearly 14% of the country\u2019s total jobs,\u201d the World Travel & Tourism Council reported<\/a> in May. For many Spaniards, though, this hardly feels like good news. In fact, it\u2019s quite the opposite. To them \u2014 and to locals in many other cities tourists like to visit \u2014 what it actually means is overcrowding, lack of housing and constant littering.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a cursed bargain, tourism: It brings in cash and jobs, but the more tourism you get, the more locals\u2019 discomfort turns to misery. These days, even the trails leading up to the Himalayas are tainted by<\/a> litter \u2014 and don\u2019t even mention Instagram tourism.<\/p>\n

But tourism doesn\u2019t need to be this destructive. Switzerland, for example, has begun giving rail discounts to those who book a stay at sustainable hotels, and it charges<\/a> anyone visiting the Lake Brienz pier, which was made famous by the Korean drama \u201cCrash Landing on You,\u201d 5 Swiss francs. The proceeds are then invested in local infrastructure.<\/p>\n

Copenhagen\u2019s approach is even more innovative. Last year, the Danish capital launched CopenPay<\/a>, a scheme that invites tourists to do good deeds for the city \u2014 and get rewarded. \u201cAll you need to do is, for instance, bike instead of drive, help maintain the city, work in an urban garden or take the train to Copenhagen instead of flying, stay longer at the destination,\u201d CopenPay explains.<\/p>\n

The initiative was launched as a four-week pilot program last year, and this summer it expanded to nine weeks, with 100 attractions participating \u2014 a fourfold increase.<\/p>\n

For instance, as part of CopenPay, there are currently 15 different opportunities to clean up litter across the city, one of which is to \u201cClean the harbor with GreenKayak and enjoy a free non-alcoholic drink and rye bar with your Sm\u00f8rrebr\u00f8d purchase at Hallernes Sm\u00f8rrebr\u00f8d.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cDuring 2024, the Spanish tourism sector experienced its best year since 2019. Its contribution to GDP rose by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28153,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4108,17846,912,1299,108,2813,26,2072,159,1300,2695,8874,1866,628,3049,8235,4505,1411,1302],"class_list":{"0":"post-28152","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-copenhagen","8":"tag-affordable-housing","9":"tag-beyond-the-bubble","10":"tag-carbon","11":"tag-cities","12":"tag-copenhagen","13":"tag-cycling","14":"tag-denmark","15":"tag-environment","16":"tag-italy","17":"tag-living-cities","18":"tag-public-transport","19":"tag-railways","20":"tag-services","21":"tag-society-and-culture","22":"tag-spain","23":"tag-sustainable-tourism","24":"tag-switzerland","25":"tag-tourism","26":"tag-urban-mobility"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}