Lifestyle •
✶ By Lisa Bradshaw
I
t’s no secret that 2020 was a disastrous year for the tourism industry, and no less so in Belgium than in the rest of the world. The country’s three regions are gearing up for a slightly better, albeit still uncertain, summer this year, with each doing its best to attract local holidaymakers as international travel remains stalled. The situation for tourism in the capital last year was “catastrophic”, says Jeroen Roppe of Visit Brussels. Some 80% of the city’s tourists come from abroad, compared to 50 to 60% in the other regions. As international tourism slowed to a stop, Visit Brussels launched the Brussels Health Safety Label to get Belgians to visit their capital city and give a boost to the local
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expat time • summer • 2021
tourism sector. The label was given to hotels, restaurants and attractions that conformed to coronavirus measures. It was one of the first concrete measures that the agency took following the lockdown, says Roppe. “It continues to be a success today because it reassures people. They need signs that they can visit the city in safe conditions.” But Brussels fell victim to an almost immediate phenomenon: when measures were relaxed, Belgians took to the forests, countryside and coast, not to the cities. They wanted, in fact, to escape the cities, which they had come to see as claustrophobic. Belgians going on holiday prefer large, open spaces, Roppe admits, “so it was difficult to attract Belgian tourists.” Visit Brussels also had to completely change its mar-
© WBT/Olivier Legardien
Belgium’s tourist agencies have responded to the coronavirus crisis with creativity and resilience
© Belga/Eric Lalmand
The road less travelled Cycling Through Water in Limburg (above); walking in the Hautes Fagnes (opposite); the GR long-distance footpath (below)
