"Overtourism" is a buzzword that is often used in connection with Dürnstein. The historic town centre is one of the best-known sights of the Wachau World Heritage Site. However, the old town is absolutely overrun at certain times. Various measures on every level should help to avoid conflicts and ease the current situation.

Exercise and sport play an important role in maintaining life-long health, yet studies show a lack of exercise and sport in the Austrian population. The “Melk Exercise Park” is intended to help change this failing in Melk and the surrounding area in a completely accessible way.

Krems-Stein, the idyllic twin town, is considered to be the "Gateway to the Wachau" and a pioneering model of monument management with World Heritage status. At the same time, however, the town’s more recent history – and above all its contemporary history – is marred by numerous dark spots.

The Wachau region was inscribed in the UNESCO list of World Heritage sites as a continuing cultural landscape in 2000. Little is known about the value of World Heritage, in particular the “OUV - outstanding universal value”. A major awareness-raising campaign is intended to change this and specifically address the population. The knowledge and importance of the Wachau Cultural Landscape should be imbued in the population as a way of getting everyone to handle this World Heritage site with greater sensitivity.

The quality campaign “Best of Wachau” comprises 53 businesses that act as a regional figurehead for marketing the destination. Within the scope of this project, the high standard of the businesses should be maintained or improved, especially in the area of online marketing. Further measures are intended to provide support with the search for employees and to boost customer loyalty.

The Nature Park owes its great diversity of plants and animals to its mosaic-like cultural landscape and the extensively used meadows. Global changes are forcing many agricultural businesses to specialise or shut up shop. A consequence of this are meadows that are no longer managed and increasingly turning into woodland. To counteract this trend and preserve diversity in the Jauerling-Wachau Nature Park, a nature park brand is under development. This label stands for management compatible with nature and gives the businesses’ products added ecological value.

SANLAS Holding is looking to integrate the private gardens of Hollenburg Private Clinic into the regional tourism offering. In cooperation with the local tourism agency, Donau Niederösterreich Tourismus GmbH, a master plan is to be created that defines how the gardens and the publicly accessible infrastructure of the clinic can be used.

The historic town of Dürnstein, with its many iconic buildings of historic importance, such as the blue tower of the abbey church or the castle ruins, has been a hotspot of activity in the Wachau tourism region from day one. The limited space available, the lack of coordination between the visiting times of different tour operators and the many options available for coming to visit the town all result in very high visitor numbers. This is creating an ever stronger sense of exploitation amongst the town’s few permanent residents (according to a recent count, only 93 people live within the town walls) and of being a stranger in one’s own home.

The World Heritage Centre at the boat station in Stein, in the municipality of Krems, was opened in September 2011. Ever since then, it has proven to be extraordinarily stable in terms of its design and substance. However, seven years later, some of the information is no longer up to date and a few things have happened in the region in recent years that are not represented on the information panels in the World Heritage Centre.

Approximately 600 asylum seekers and recognised asylum seekers currently live in the Wachau-Dunkelsteinerwald region. Building on the work done in the asylum and integration coordination project, targeted measures and offers should be put in place to improve the integration of people who fled to us in recent years. A central role will be accorded to the people already well advanced in the integration process.