Beispiel Dahner Felsenland (Biosphärenreservat Pfälzerwald) Bicycle Tourism - A Task for Regional Marketing. An Example from Rhineland-Palatine

Abstract

Bicycle tourism is one of the last remaining prosperity-promising segments of German domestic tourism: more than 3 million Germans were on a bicycle journey in 1999, spending about 2.2 billion Euro. Needless to say that a great number of tourism regions are eager to receive their share from this cash cow; however, oftentimes neglecting to develop a Unique Selling Proposition (USP) for their product. Nevertheless, this becomes more and more important especially for low-mountain-range regions where cycling might be strenuous. This paper describes how to develop a regional tourism USP with the method of regional marketing in a German community in Rhineland-Palatine. Very helpful for building a USP is the fact that this particular community is located in one of only 12 biosphere reserves in Germany. Regional marketing used in this context consists of: • Implementation and communication of a new tourism product inside the region - aim: a professional bicycle infrastructure (resorts, ways, signs) and focussing on target groups. Then (and only then!) • product-launch on the tourism market, combined with innovative all-inclusive offers.