This award comes as little surprise to Mayor Jochen Kuttler. “This year, we have further intensified our efforts on our hiking trails, after all, hiking is one of the main pillars of tourism in our region,” the town hall chief explains the strategy. “We are now focusing exclusively on premium hiking trails and want to convince through quality rather than quantity. That is why we have had a full-time trail supervisor for a year who carries out the necessary regular inspections and directly implements most maintenance work as well as further renovation and optimization measures,” he adds.
Convincing through quality
The city of Wadern is the first municipality in the Merzig-Wadern district to equip one of its premium hiking trails, namely the newly awarded Traumschleifchen Bardenbacher Fels, with the signs in the new design of the premium hiking region Saar-Hunsrück as early as March 2024. “In addition, the route on the ridge trail of the 3.3 km short path was optimized to provide even more safety and experience quality for the hikers,” explains the trail warden Maurice Prümm about the measures taken. He also rebuilt stairs and handrails along the trail during the hiking season so that the picturesque path can show itself at its best. The Traumschleifchen Forsthofrunde is regularly inspected and cleared to maintain its high standard and continually delight hikers. At the tourist information center of the city of Wadern, practical mini hiking maps with route descriptions and information are available free of charge for all six premium hiking trails.
Digital Route Management
“With six premium hiking trails and the Saar-Hunsrück-Steig, our guests have a tough choice when it comes to hiking options,” says Martin Vorreiter, who is responsible for tourism and the 86 kilometers of certified hiking trails at the town hall of Wadern. “The other hiking routes here are also top quality,” reports the tourism expert, referring to the dream loop “Almglück,” which was once again rated an excellent 75 experience points by the German Hiking Institute in the summer. To maintain the high quality of the hiking trails, the trail management in the town of Wadern is currently being transferred into a digital and uniform database in cooperation with the Saarschleifenland Tourismus GmbH district organization, to accelerate and optimize the exchange between trail wardens and the district trail warden.
