On 12–13 May 2025, we participated in the 7th project meeting of the ICTr-CE project in Gdańsk, Poland.
The project focuses on three innovative elements designed to make cycling tourism more sustainable. The first is the implementation of the internationally recognised CARMACAL tourism carbon footprint calculator for long-distance cycling tourism products. The second is the development and pilot implementation of an innovative Impact Monitoring System (IMS) to assess the negative socio-economic impacts of cycling tourism. Nadácia Ekopolis leads the third innovation – the Good Impact Programme, which aims to reduce the negative impacts of cycling tourism by supporting local initiatives and projects through funding generated by the CARMACAL and IMS mechanisms. Together, these three components are being developed and piloted along the EuroVelo 13 – Iron Curtain Trail, with the ambition of making them transferable to other long-distance cycling routes across Europe.
As the project enters its third and final year, the meeting focused primarily on planning the pilot activities for the summer and autumn of 2025, as well as the project’s final implementation phase. Partners reviewed progress across all three work packages—Product Development, Impact Assessment, and Sustainability & Transferability—along with the project’s management and financial status. The project is progressing according to plan. During the past months, we completed the concept for the Good Impact Programme and are now finalising the selection of a tour operator that will implement this innovative, though complex, mechanism in practice.
The ICTr-CE consortium brings together 12 partners from 9 Central European countries. Its main outcome will be the pilot implementation of an innovative cycling tourism product along three sections of the EuroVelo 13 – Iron Curtain Trail: the Polish-German Baltic coast, the Czech-Austrian-Slovak border between Lipno and Bratislava, and the Hungarian-Slovenian-Croatian border region. The project will conclude in February 2026, with the selected tour operator expected to launch the new tourism products on the German, Austrian, and Swiss markets during the 2026 summer season.
The meeting was held at the European Solidarity Centre in Gdańsk—a place of great historical significance. It was here that the events leading to the fall of totalitarian regimes in Eastern Europe began in 1980, ultimately culminating in the collapse of the Iron Curtain. This shared history lies at the heart of the EuroVelo 13 – Iron Curtain Trail, the route around which the ICTr-CE project is built.
