This Scandinavian Capital is Paying Visitors to Travel Green

Copenhagen is putting its money where its mouth is when it comes to sustainable travel. The tourism board of the capital of Denmark is rewarding you to make green choices when you visit this summer as part of a pilot program that could lead the world in helping both locations and visitors to benefit more from travel. 

 

More popular destinations are struggling with growing numbers of visitors and their impact on the environment and local lifestyle. Instead of restricting visitors or imposing surcharges, famously eco-friendly Copenhagen has come up with a program to treat travelers for taking actions that benefit everyone.

 

CopenPay is a new initiative “transforming green actions into currency for cultural experiences,” says Visit Copenhagen. The city wants to inspire visitors to make conscious “green choices” and help bridge the gap between visitors’ desires to act sustainably and their actual behaviour while in the city.  It makes those “green choices” easy, fun… and rewarding.

 

CopenPay rewards actions such as cycling, participating in cleanup efforts, or volunteering at urban farms with access to a variety of enriching experiences and everyday wonders of Copenhagen. This includes complimentary guided museum tours, free kayak rentals, and even a free vegetarian lunch made from local produce.

 

For instance, visitors arriving at the National Gallery of Denmark with plastic waste are invited to a workshop to turn it into a piece of art. Similarly, taking public transport or a bike to Copenhagen's iconic heating plant gives you access to the unique experience of skiing down the slope on the building’s roof.

 

 

 

The simplicity of the CopenPay system allows easy participation: just show your train ticket, arrive on a bicycle, or present other simple proof of green actions to redeem your rewards.

 

You’ll be fitting in just like a local: in a city of just over 600,000 residents, there are over 750,000 bicycles. That’s not just more bicycles than people. It’s also 4 times the number of cars in Copenhagen, a city set up for cyclists, with nearly 250 miles of bicycle lanes.

 

Not only that, but Copenhagen’s famous canals are clean enough to swim in. Nearly three-quarters of the city’s power is generated by renewable energy, and the majority of hotel rooms are eco-certified.

 

Of course, you’ll still get to enjoy all the famous attractions of Copenhagen: the waterfront statue of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid, Copenhagen’s colorful harborfront, world-famous dining as simple as iconic Scandinavian open-face sandwiches all the way to some of the top-rated fine dining venues in the world, and even the country’s coveted ‘hygge’ way of life that regularly puts Danes at the top of the list of the world’s happiest people.

.

 

CopenPay aims to provide visitors more opportunities to make green choices – and get even better local, cultural, immersive experiences. The pilot project launches July 15, 2024 with over 20 attractions, including The National Museum, The National Gallery of Denmark, The Museum of Copenhagen, the running club Sparta, Green Kayak, Copenhill, Øens Have, bike rental from Donkey Republic and many more.

 

 

The pilot program of CopenPay will run until at least August 11, with a hope to make it a permanent feature of the city’s travel experience. CopenPay attractions and rewards will be regularly updated at copenpay.com.

 

Mikkel Aaro-Hansen, CEO at Wonderful Copenhagen, says the program is inspired to “turn tourism… into a force for positive change, and one important step in this transformation is to change how we move around a destination, what we consume, and how we interact with the locals. With CopenPay we want travellers as well as local attractions to focus on change.”

 

The hope is not only to continue the pilot project, but also to inspire other cities around the world to introduce similar initiatives that welcome visitors and equally benefit them and the local community.