Germany: When tourism becomes a question of identity - Get updated on what's happening in tourism!

There are moments when taking a position becomes necessary. With Saxony-Anhalt electing a new state parliament on 6 September, Günter Ihlau and Dr Wolfgang Isenberg examine an area of politics that rarely attracts the same attention as migration, education or public broadcasting: tourism.

Their essay, “Das Land, das wir den Gästen zeigen” – “The country we show our guests” – takes statements by AfD politicians on tourism, history and national identity as its starting point. Hans-Thomas Tillschneider, the AfD parliamentary group’s spokesman for education, culture and science in Saxony-Anhalt, has called for the state to develop what he describes as “Volksbildungstourismus” – tourism serving popular education – under the banner #deutschdenken. Saxony-Anhalt, he argues, should become a “place of longing for all German patriots”.

For Ihlau and Isenberg, this raises a question extending far beyond destination marketing: who decides which stories a country tells about itself, what constitutes a sense of home and belonging, and what conclusions visitors are expected to draw from history?

When travel becomes identity politics

For a long time, the AfD’s tourism policy appeared relatively conventional. When Sebastian Münzenmaier became chairman of the German Bundestag’s Tourism Committee in 2018, the appointment was controversial, but much of the subsequent parliamentary work concerned familiar industry issues such as SMEs, infrastructure, competitiveness, digitalisation and bureaucracy.

According to the authors, a shift became more apparent later. In 2023, AfD tourism politicians at federal and state level argued that strong domestic tourism should not only support regional economic value creation but also “create identity”.

Saxony-Anhalt provides a particularly clear example. Under the #deutschdenken concept, tourism is linked to German history, national identity, language and culture. Tillschneider has described existing cultural tourism as “nationally and historically sterile” and advocated giving greater prominence to historical sites according to their importance for German identity.

Ihlau and Isenberg do not object to presenting German history. Their criticism begins where historical events and places are deliberately selected and connected in order to support a predetermined concept of national identity.

History should leave room for judgement

The proposed “Straße des Deutschen Reiches”, or “Road of the German Reich”, illustrates the distinction. The authors stress that a historical tourist route is not problematic in itself. Themed routes are a well-established tourism instrument, linking destinations and bringing visitors to smaller towns and rural areas.

The decisive issue, they argue, is the narrative connecting those places. According to Tillschneider, the route would link locations where German identity was shaped and would explicitly form part of the #deutschdenken concept.

The Bauhaus provides a contrasting example. Founded in Germany, it became a global cultural phenomenon without losing its German origins. Its ideas crossed borders, and its international significance is today an important part of Dessau’s appeal as a destination.

The authors cite Reinhard Meyer, President of the German Tourism Association, who sees eastern Germany’s tourism strength precisely in internationally recognised cultural attractions such as the Bauhaus, the Luther sites and UNESCO World Heritage properties.

Tourism itself reflects an international society

The debate also has an immediate economic dimension. Tourism depends on international visitors, but increasingly also on an international workforce.

According to figures cited by Ihlau and Isenberg, foreign nationals now account for 44.5 percent of employees subject to social security contributions in Germany’s hospitality sector. In food and beverage services the share reaches 47.8 percent, rising to 54.6 percent in food-led restaurants.

For the authors, these figures describe everyday reality rather than an abstract integration debate. People from different countries work in hotel kitchens, at reception desks and in restaurants, serve regional dishes and German wines and explain destinations to visitors.

Their argument is that belonging therefore cannot be understood solely in terms of origin. It also develops through people living, working and sharing experiences together.

Climate, landscapes and the danger of simple answers

The essay also examines the relationship between tourism, climate policy and landscape protection. Wind turbines alter landscapes, the authors acknowledge, but this does not automatically mean that renewable energy destroys landscapes or damages tourism.

Landscapes have always changed. Vineyards themselves are cultural landscapes, while reservoirs, roads, cable cars and tourism infrastructure have all transformed places that are subsequently marketed as landscapes worth protecting.

The political challenge, according to Ihlau and Isenberg, is therefore to balance competing interests: how much change can a landscape absorb, what should be preserved and who should bear the costs? They make a similar argument about climate policy, acknowledging that travel must remain affordable and that bureaucracy or poorly designed sustainability requirements can impose burdens on tourism businesses.

Their criticism is directed at reducing such complex conflicts to binary choices – landscape versus wind energy, climate protection versus freedom to travel, tradition versus “wokeness”, or the familiar versus the foreign.

Tourism thrives on different perspectives

At the heart of the essay is a broader argument about democracy. A resident sees a destination differently from a visitor, a hotelier differently from a conservationist and a hiker differently from an energy planner. Several perspectives can be legitimate at the same time without any single one representing the whole picture.

For Ihlau and Isenberg, democratic politics must ultimately make decisions, but those decisions are not improved by eliminating disagreement beforehand. They require competing interests to be recognised, consequences considered and choices explained.

The same principle applies to history. Governments can support museums, develop destinations, establish priorities and promote historical education. But, the authors argue, they should not determine in advance what political conclusion visitors are expected to reach from their encounter with history.

What kind of country do we want to be?

No single tourist route, wind turbine or debate about the Bauhaus determines the future of democracy. Taken together, however, Ihlau and Isenberg see these disputes as evidence of fundamentally different ideas about how society should deal with history, identity, diversity and change.

Their criticism is not directed against a sense of home, German history or the desire to shape social change. It is directed against what they regard as an attempt to create an increasingly unambiguous political order in which belonging is more narrowly defined and history is organised around a desired identity.

For the authors, tourism is therefore anything but a sideshow in this debate. Travel depends on encounters with what is unfamiliar, on different perspectives and on experiences whose outcome is not predetermined.

Their conclusion is correspondingly clear: a government may build roads, support museums, develop destinations, install signs and finance tourism campaigns. But it should not seek to determine what people are supposed to think at the end of their journey.

The authors

Günter Ihlau is a board member of the Center for Innovation & Sustainability in Tourism (c.i.s.t) and Chairman of the Cultural Tourism Working Group at the German Travel Association (DRV). He previously served, among other positions, as Director of International Relations at TUI AG and coordinator of TUI AG’s Leisure and Tourism think tank, and spent more than 15 years working in tourism destinations.

Dr Wolfgang Isenberg is Chairman of the Political Advisory Board for Tourism in North Rhine-Westphalia. His previous roles include Director of the Thomas Morus Academy, lecturer and coordinator of TUI AG’s Leisure and Tourism think tank.

Image Credit: © AI generated illustration with material courtesy of Tourexpi