Nearly Half of the Regions GDP is from Tourism

Yet Nearly Two-Thirds of Schleswig-Holstein’s Wind Capacity is also in the Region

December 26, 2012

By Paul Gipe

Attendees at the 2012 Husum wind exhibition, the oldest and largest of its kind in the world, received a beautifully designed booklet promoting the wonders of the host city.

The 71-page guide, Husum: Mal Ganz Ehrlich (Let’s Be Honest), like promotional brochures touting cities everywhere note the venues, meeting rooms, bars and nightclubs to visitors and businesses.

The difference with the modest Husum meeting guide is the celebration of the role the region has played in the history of wind energy development.

The exhibition was expecting 40,000 visitors from 90 countries for the 2012 event. The city itself has only 22,400 residents. That gives the scale of the exhibition and what the event means for the region. Hotels are filled as far away as the border with Denmark. The whole region takes part.

Husum is the wind capital of the world with 2,700 wind turbines in the state of Schleswig-Holstein, 50% of them on the North Sea coast surrounding Husum. Nearly two-thirds of the installed wind capacity in the land or state is in the region centered on Husum.

The exhibition, held every two years, has being going strong since it began 25-years ago and it remains a “must see” for not only wind energy professionals but renewable energy advocates as well.

What erstwhile critics of wind energy will find most infuriating is that the North Sea coast of Schleswig-Holstein gets 49% of its GDP from tourism despite–or because of–the wind energy developed there. Despite claims to the contrary, tourism and wind energy development co-exist in the region.

Because of its central role in wind energy development over the decades, Husum has also become the center of wind turbine technician training now used around the world.

There are also 120,000 sheep in the region.

The promotional booklet’s theme and that of the region’s is “Where people and the sea live together”.

They tourist bureau could easily adapt that to “where people, sheep, and the wind live together”.

Husum: Mal Ganz Ehrlich (Let’s Be Honest) by Husum’s Tourist Promotion office, 71 pages, May 2012.