The Danish capital, Copenhagen has launched DestinationPay – a global tourism model designed to reward tourists for doing good. Several cities have already joined the programme which was launched on the main stage of the European Tourism Forum in Copenhagen.
DestinationPay expands on the award-winning CopenPay model, which lets visitors “pay” back to destinations through simple positive actions – from removing rubbish from the canals to arriving by bike at museums – and receive cultural rewards in return.
DestinationPay is a new global model designed for destinations that want to adopt their own version of Copenhagen’s successful CopenPay initiative. Created by Copenhagen’s official Tourism Board, Wonderful Copenhagen, it provides a framework and tools to help cities and regions reward tourists for positive actions that benefit local communities.
“We’ve seen how many of our visitors seek different and more meaningful experiences. Tourists don’t just want to see a city anymore, they want to be part of it. CopenPay gave them that opportunity. DestinationPay is how we scale this mindset to the world,” said Søren Tegen Pedersen, CEO of Wonderful Copenhagen.
Now Wonderful Copenhagen is inviting destinations worldwide to join the movement and sign up as future partners. In February, DestinationPay will host an online webinar to share all the insights and learnings Wonderful Copenhagen has gathered over the past two years.
Participants will gain access to the knowledge, data, and tools developed during the past two years as well as a playbook on how to adopt and invent their own CopenPay model in their destination. Destinations like Berlin and Normandy are among the first to embrace the concept and have created their own schemes.
Photo: DestinationPay_Rikke Holm Petersen/Wonderful Copenhagen