World Heritage Journeys of the European Union
Wachau Cultural Landscape © Stefan Rotter
With the support from the European Union, the project integrates UNESCO recognised outstanding cultural heritage into a consumer friendly platform and series of thematic routes for sustainable tourism development across Europe.
The World Heritage Journeys of the European Union is a project implemented in partnership with National Geographic and convening together 34 World Heritage sites in the European Union. These sites are divided into four different thematic itineraries; Royal Europe, Ancient Europe, Underground Europe and Romantic Europe.
Each theme is intended to help travellers understand the sites’ contribution to World Heritage including a greater understanding of the Outstanding Universal Value and cultural heritage of the destination at large. Cultural heritage is the primary focus for this initiative, combining both built heritage, with historic and existing intangible cultural heritage expressed through the community’s living cultural values.
The World Heritage Journeys enable to connect lesser known sites to more visited ones within one itinerary, thus putting forward the many potential hidden gems travellers can discover in Europe.
A web platform has been developed showcasing the different itineraries and giving substantive information on what to discover on the sites and their surroundings, as well as activities and attractions - that could be useful to plan for a trip.
Each of the 34 participating World Heritage sites are committed to the development of sustainable and high-quality products that will spur investment in culture and community-centered creative industries.
The promotion of the four thematic journeys is being done in synergy with other actions launched or supported by the European Union, in particular the 2018 EU/China Tourism Year and the 2018 European Year of Cultural Heritage.
