Romoos nominated as Best Tourism Village

According to a press release from the UNESCO Biosphere Entlebuch (UBE), the community of Romoos has been nominated for Best Tourism Village 2024 awarded by UN Tourism, the global tourism organization headquartered in Madrid. Romoos is located in the UNESCO Biosphere Entlebuch. A jury including members of the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), Swiss Tourism, and the Swiss tourism association Schweizer Tourismus-Verband (STV) submitted Romoos to UN Tourism along with five other Swiss competitors. The other locations are Ernen in the canton of Valais, Lavizzara in Ticino, Lens also in Valais, Splügen in Graubünden, and Valendas in Graubünden.

The press release mentions as a reason for the submission to UN Tourism the fact that the UNESCO Biosphere Entlebuch is the first biosphere reserve in Switzerland to be a model biosphere for the world after reviews performed by UNESCO every ten years. Entlebuch and Romoos are viewed by STV as a model region for sustainable, integrative tourism.

In addition to the authentic traditions involving charcoal and gold panning in Romoos, the community’s population has raised 4.95 million Swiss francs in a large-scale initiative to renovate the protected historic building Hotel Kreuz. This shows how important tourism is to the local population of the small vacation village. Furthermore, the promotion of travel to Romoos via public transport and barrier-free tourism were mentioned as reasons for the nomination.

The UNESCO Biosphere Entlebuch sees itself as a modern biosphere organization, sustainable destination developer, innovation driver, and network of networks. In addition to the city of Lucerne and the Lucerne Riviera, the UBE is a tourism competence center as defined by the canton of Lucerne with national and international appeal. ce/gba