Rewarding Eco-Friendly Tourists: An Innovative Approach to a Daunting Problem

16.07.2024 - 20:27 / travelpulse.com / Mia Taylor

As devastating as the COVID-19 pandemic was, it also served to highlight a critically important reality: The tourism industry needs to do far more to protect the planet.

And so too do travelers.

During the immediate aftermath of the pandemic, there was a great deal of industry buzz about changes that travel brands and destinations were implementing to step up efforts to protect the planet.

Some of those changes came to pass, some were greenwashing. And the abuzz surrounding the dire to be more considerate of the planet, biodiversity and fragile ecosystems has largely faded.

Meanwhile, overtourism has once again become rampant and locals in communities impacted by the crushing weight of hordes of tourists are actively protesting.

Amid this backdrop, Copenhagen has announced a refreshingly innovative new plan to reward visitors for engaging in environmentally-friendly activities.

The new program has been dubbed CopenPay, according to a press release issued by Wonderful Copenhagen, the Danish capital’s tourism organization.

And ht plan involves rewarding tourists for green behavior in order to help “change the mindset of tourists and encourage green choices.”


The green currency scheme offers visitors activities and experiences such as guided museum tours, kayak rentals and a free vegetarian lunch in exchange for taking green actions such as cycling, helping with clean-up programs and volunteering initiatives.

“It is a core task for us to make traveling sustainable. And we will only succeed if we bridge the large gap between the visitors' desire to act sustainably and their actual behavior,” Mikkel Aarø-Hansen, CEO at Wonderful Copenhagen, said in a statement announcing the program.

Aarø-Hansen added: It might sound simple, but it is not.

And in making that statement, Aarø-Hansen hit the nail on the head.

Solving the significant challenges facing the planet —whether it is the insidious plastic pollution that's destroying the environment and killing wildlife, or the carbon emissions that are rapidly heating up the planet and making it unlivable in many places — the problems we’re dealing with are incredibly complex, especially when faced with headwinds from big oil companies not interested in changing or governments led by leaders who actively deny climate change and work to block progress.

But programs like the one just unveiled in Copenhagen offer hope.

Change is notoriously hard.