IUBH PROJECT #RETHINKING TOURISM RECEIVES YOUNG TALENT AWARD

Erfurt, 02 November 2020 - More than 200 tourism students of IUBH International University of Applied Sciences, Thuringia's largest university, have reason to celebrate: For their blog project "#Rethinking Tourism - Opportunities during the crisis", they won the Tourism Recognition Award in the category "Thinking about Tomorrow Today - Creative Ideas for the Future" at the Thuringia Tourism Day. They convinced the jury with their approach to use the COVID crisis as an opportunity and promote networking within the tourism industry by means of their own blog. State Secretary Valentina Kerst presented the award to project leader Prof. Dr. Peter Neumann. 

Wolfgang Tiefensee: "Creativity and especially the courage to act in times of crisis"

The Thuringian Tourism Award is presented annually. This year, it focused on outstanding ideas, approaches and business models that have emerged in times of lockdown and show how new things can arise from the current challenging situation. "Looking at the award winners and the recognitions of the Tourism Award, it is clear that entrepreneurial initiative, creativity and, above all, the courage to act in the crisis were the determining factors here. Inventive tourism offers are often the result of lengthy deliberations about positioning in the market – in this case they emerged spontaneously in order to break new ground and ensure survival," says Wolfgang Tiefensee, Minister for Economic Affairs. 

#Rethinking Tourism enables discussing solutions out of the COVID Crisis

The study project "#Rethinking Tourism" provides possible solutions after the pandemic with a wide range of content. Texts and multimedia blog contributions inspire the desire for creativity and innovation in tourism. Tourism professionals from all sectors and of all company sizes are invited to follow suit. The students' ideas and solutions will be presented to tourism professionals on the public blog www.umdenken-im-tourismus.de  as well as on social media such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Spotify. Due to its success so far, "#Rethinking Tourism" has now also been nominated for the German Tourism Award, which can be voted for at https://www.deutschertourismuspreis.de/innovationsfinder/iu-umdenken-tourismus.html starting November 5.

The Thuringian Tourism Day was broadcast via livestream this year

Due to the current developments regarding the COVID pandemic, the Thuringian Tourism Day could not take place as a face-to-face event this year. However, a livestream broadcast of the programme made it possible for anyone interested to be there live in front of the screen and in this way also follow the panel discussion, during which Prof. Dr. Peter Neumann was able to share important findings of the #Rethinking Tourism project with the audience.