Improving Tourism in Cities along the Danube: Where Local Dwellers and Tourists Come Together or Collide

Abstract

Since the fall of the iron curtain, countries, regions and cities allocated along the Danube River have become attractive for tourism from European and international destinations. Th is is indicated by strong relations between members of Eastern and Western European societies and evidenced by growing numbers of overnight stays. Grown up in a region where sometimes over-exploitation and exclusionary concepts for city management could be witnessed, in this article I discuss the potential of discontinuities and cleavages that result from an open-interpretation round based on pictures relating to the Danube. Th is article is an invitation to discuss tourism development according to the desires of selected citizens from small and medium-size cities along the Danube. While Belgrade, Bratislava, and Budapest have opened up for mass tourism, sustainable tourism might be a destination for smaller cities embedded into a unique geography.