There is this popular saying in the Ruhr area: “It’s shit somewhere else too.” It’s best said with a grumpy shrug of the shoulders. And in situations that seem hopeless. For example, if you don’t live in the most beautiful city in the world – but in a city where people say what they think. Like the Bochum cabaret artist Frank Goosen with wonderfully modest Ruhrpott patriotism: “Home, it’s here or somewhere else.”
It may seem all the more surprising that the city of Dortmund – in the heart of the Ruhr area – recently took second place among the most popular travel destinations worldwide. At least that’s what the current data from the vacation platform Airbnb says. And, one more restriction, only related to the summer of 2024, in the months of June, July and August. But at least! The city is therefore ahead of metropolises such as Tokyo, New York, London, Paris and whatever they are called. And also in front of German cities like Munich or Stuttgart. Only Brighton and Hove in Great Britain – another rather inconspicuous city at first glance – was able to beat Dortmund in the ranking.
But before you, as an arrogant Munich or Hamburger, pick on Dortmund, with its gray mining houses, the 1960s transfer station, the canal with the brown soup that only extremely optimistic people would call a river, the old Ruhrpott women with floral smocks and pillows Look armed out of the window: Of course there are nice corners here too, no question. There is the Westfalenstadion, right next to it a huge nature reserve in the middle of the city (for those who know the Ruhr area: the Bolmke), there is the Kreuzviertel with its beautiful old buildings and rustic pubs, there are clubs in old mine buildings. And above all, of course, the people who say what they think. Who else wants to go to New York?
And yet one has to admit that none of this was responsible for the tourist boom. Dortmund was probably just lucky this summer.
On the one hand, there was of course the European Football Championship. 700,000 football fans visited the city during the European Championship weeks. For comparison: Dortmund only had 900,000 guests in the entire year of 2023. And then there were the three concerts by pop star Taylor Swift in the neighboring town of Gelsenkirchen, which was probably promptly renamed “Swiftkirchen” because of a brilliant marketing strategy by a press spokesman. But because overnight accommodations were scarce there, fans simply moved to Dortmund, 30 kilometers away.
The people of Dortmund would probably say that they didn’t miss anything in Gelsenkirchen (or Herne West). It’s even worse somewhere else.
