Project · Planning · Canton of Valais
Bike
Valais/Wallis
From cantonal potential to a mountain biking destination with an established institutional structure.
Bike Valais/Wallis
Facts and figures
10+ regions and destinations
Analysis | Strategy | Coordination
Key questions
Offering
How can individual trails become a coherent biking offering across cantonal boundaries?
Economic viability
How can mountain biking tourism be meaningfully connected with the existing winter offering and the region’s tourism strengths?
Operations
Which organizational structure can coordinate implementation across different destinations and sustain it over the long term?
Communications
How can the new offering be marketed effectively at the cantonal and regional levels?
Project description
A top-down approach with bottom-up implementation
Starting point
Valais offers a unique landscape with outstanding natural and cultural experiences, along with easy access through a dense network of public transportation and mountain lifts. Food and culture further enrich the overall experience. Riders have long discovered Valais for their sport, increasingly including leisure and adventure riders alongside downhill enthusiasts and elite athletes. Valais is therefore ideally positioned to develop the largest customer segments: touring, all-mountain, enduro, and freeride mountain bikers, whose public profile is closest to skiing and offers synergies with winter sports. However, official trails, comprehensive biking offerings, and regional marketing were still lacking.
Our contribution
The BikeValaisWallis project was initiated by the STRATOS destination network, which commissioned Bikeplan to develop it. Bikeplan analyzed the state of mountain biking tourism in the canton, visitor and regional potential for a mountain biking destination, development goals, and suitable approaches. Building on this, the project showed how mountain biking tourism could be coordinated, supported by an institutional structure, and funded, involving environmental organizations, neighboring projects, and national coordination bodies such as SchweizMobil.
Based on a survey of local conditions, tourism and land use analyses, and coordination discussions with stakeholders, Bikeplan developed tailored mountain biking concepts for each destination. The tourism analysis was carried out by mountain bike scouts known as “Trail Agents.” They spent a week in each destination, riding all the trails and using an app to record data on trails, the local scene, services, hotels, and transportation from a mountain biking perspective.
What was created
The cantonal analysis led to a coordinated mountain biking tourism offering in Valais with an established institutional structure.
- A sound tourism and land use analysis for the canton of Valais
- Tailored mountain biking development concepts for each destination
- The BikeValaisWallis coordination office as a central point of contact since 2017
- A foundation for the cantonal mountain biking strategy and associated implementation projects
- A clear focus on the largest customer segments: touring, all-mountain, enduro, and freeride riders
Impact
The BikeValaisWallis coordination office gave mountain biking tourism in Valais an institutional foundation in 2017. It is the first point of contact for cycling-related questions and acts as an intermediary between destinations, external service providers (including trail builders, planners, journalists, and the international scene), cantonal departments, and environmental organizations. It plans and implements specific marketing and PR activities and supports the planning of regional connecting routes through implementation.
