(Interviewed in 2005)

Susann Mayer

It may not be the fastest, but that's what makes the ride so interesting: the "Lößnitzdackel" ("Lößnitz dachshund") is what the locals affectionately call the Lößnitzgrundbahn railway, one of the oldest narrow-gauge railways in Germany. It runs through the slender Lößnitzgrund valley – once the site of seven mills – and on to Moritzburg, home of the famous Moritzburg Castle, Little Pheasant Castle and wildlife park.

This is how Gabriele Clauss, TU graduate and head of Oberelbe Tours in Dresden, gets her guests in the mood for exploring Saxony in out-of-the-ordinary ways. Travel up the "Elbhänge" – the slopes of the Elbe river valley – with the world's first mountain cableway, or journey through Kirnitzschtal valley in Saxon Switzerland on the electric railway: "Auf Achse – Der besondere Ausflugstipp" (in English roughly: "On the move – excursions with a twist") offers historical highlights, suggested excursions, and maps and timetables for the relevant tourist transportation options. There are also tips on local events, for example the Karl May festival in May and the "Herbst- und Weinfest in Altkötzschenbroda" (Autumn and wine festival in Altkötzschenbroda) in September. The free, handy booklet is designed to encourage visitors to explore the area via public transportation.

"Oberelbe Tours is part of the Verkehrsverbund Oberelbe (VVO) Upper Elbe transport association. It is VVO that issues contracts for train services in the Upper Elbe region. Train, bus and streetcar timetables and fares are also coordinated to make public transport customer-friendly," explains the 34-year-old. Five years ago, Probst & Consorten was commissioned by VVO to conduct a tourism potential analysis that examined leisure behavior in the Upper Elbe region and public awareness and use of tourist transport options. The study showed that the leisure transport sector is a growth market.

To exploit public transport potential in the leisure segment, i.e. to market buses, trains and what are known as special transport services such as mountain railways to tourists, a tourism expert was needed to set up what is now the Oberelbe Tours tourism office. This was a challenge that Gabriele Clauss took on with enthusiasm. "I studied business management in Saarbrücken and Dresden from 1993 to 1998, specializing in marketing, tourism, and business French. My degree gave me the systematic and theoretical grounding that I could now put into practice at VVO – to establish my own tourism office from business concept to implementation," she says, looking back. "I was able to apply my general marketing expertise to the specific case of special transport services."

A pen, a desk, and a room – that's all that Gabriele Clauss had in 2001 when she took on the task of introducing visitors to Saxony "on narrow gauge, in the air, by rail, in the water and on four wheels." She was able to draw on two years of project experience in marketing services and cultural facilities (for example, in calculating the tourist basket of goods and services for a tourist tax in the Baltic Sea resort of Scharbeutz) after her degree, at the Chair of Tourism Economics and Management. Now the task was to develop ideas, find partners to help implement them, and market the services to the public. "Oberelbe Tours works closely with its partners. With coordination and financing from VVO, we engage in tourist marketing in the VVO area. This ranges from product development and product marketing to services for visitors in Dresden and the surrounding area." Structured in her approach and systematic in implementation, Clauss has developed incentive offers and group packages, created conference programs, and put together excursion recommendations.

Marketing is done through the service centers of partner organizations in the VVO Upper Elbe transport association, for example. A series of information booklets is readily available – for example in S-Bahn interurban trains. If you want to take the S3 train from the hustle and bustle of the city to Tharandt Forest, the route map gives you the travel times between stops, distances from sights and tourist and cultural facilities, and connections to other transportation services.

The 2-person office on Leipziger Straße has a number of new editions up its sleeve for the next few months: Santa and Mrs. Claus will be distributing the 2005 Christmas market brochures hot off the press the first weekend in Advent on special Weißeritztalbahn train journeys at the narrow-gauge railway festival in Freital. The brochure on winter sports in the eastern Ore Mountains (Erzgebirge) will also be published at the same time, complete with timetables and prices for winter sports trains and buses.

The future?

"Public transportation is operating in a difficult environment. The number of schoolchildren is falling and there are fewer people commuting to work; the group of traditional public transport users is shrinking. The fact that overall passenger numbers remain high means that leisure travel is increasing – and that is our area."

What is the connection to the University?

"To date, the link has been indirect, through VVO. VVO is a member of EVTI, the Europäisches Verkehrs- und Tourismusinstitut (European Transport and Tourism Institute) at TU Dresden. It also takes on interns and students for final-year projects, and a number of VVO employees are graduates of the TU Institute of Transport and Traffic Sciences."

What more would you like from the university?

"I could imagine a tourism project in partnership with the tourism department. The potential is there; dissertation projects would be good."

Contact details:

Gabriele Clauss, Oberelbe Tours
Leipziger Str. 120
01127 Dresden
Tel.: 0351 8526529

Email: Gabriele Clauss

Back to the alumni portaits