Friday 25th August marked the start of the annual Aarhus Festuge Week, honouring 55 years of community and culture. Uniting local and international influences, the festival targets everybody of all ages and nationalities, selling as an attraction for tourists and sightseers.
Like many parts of Europe, August is a popular time for tourism in Aarhus. As coordinator of food at Aarhus Festival, Jacob Sejr tells us “Yesterday we had a lot of tourism due to the cruise ship coming in […]I feel like there’s more tourism, but also because there is more tourism out in the country, then they hear about [the festival] and then they come to Aarhus during festival week.”
In talking about catering for tourism during festival week, the administrative director of Aarhus Festival, Gemma Brotherton-Ratcliffe says how “generally there are more international tourists in Aarhus at this time […] we are trying to cater for these English speaking/non-Danish speaking people with all our QR codes. We want to cater for everyone.”
Whilst the festival is largely aimed at a local audience, it is important that activities also bring new people into the city, leading to economic growth. As Gemma continues “generally there are more people in the town at this stage, and the shops and restaurants are willing to work with us and co-operate with us, and the reason for this is that they are also benefitting from it.”
Surrounding the festival, tourism occurs on both a local and an international scale, broadening the wider community.
Reported by Chloe Wong and Olivia Grace Watts