Hiking Enjoys Boost in Popularity in Luxembourg

Luxembourg's General Directorate for Tourism has announced that hiking is booming in the Grand Duchy. 

Luxembourg has a network of around 5,000 kilometres of marked hiking trails which have witnessed great success over the past year. The survey of footpath attendance figures as well as the official statistics of the National Geoportal of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and of the national promotion agency "Luxembourg for tourism" revealed that interest in hiking had increased considerably over the past year compared to 2019.

The survey of footpath frequentation numbers showed that the “Traumschleife Manternacher Fiels”, which passes largely through a nature reserve and which obtained 91 points out of 100 by the “Deutsches Wanderinstitut”, attracted 12,786 hikers in 2020 - double that of 2019 (6,332 hikers). The “Traumschleife Wein- und Naturpfad Palmberg”, which leads through the steep vineyards of the Palmberg, as well as the “Traumschleife Schengen grenzenlos”, also attracted double the number of hikers compared to 2019.

The “Mullerthal Trail”, which is characterised by a landscape dotted with rock formations and is one of the most famous hiking trails in Luxembourg, counted more than 160,000 hikers in 2020, which corresponds to an increase of nearly 15,000 people compared to 2019. The “Escapardenne”, a long hiking trail that stretches over 158 kilometres, experienced a similar development. The survey of attendance figures showed that the number of people on this hiking trail increased by around 25% on average.

Statistics from the National Geoportal of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg also confirmed an impressive increase in interest in hiking. All of the sub-headings in the “hiking trails” category experienced an average doubling of the page views on the geoportail.lu site. The number of page views concerning the section “walking trails” increased by 189% (211,383 pages viewed in 2020 compared to 73,154 in 2019). The “CFL from station to station” hiking trails (32,519 pages viewed compared to14,396) as well as the thematic trails section (25,583 pages viewed compared to 10,303) also recorded a significant positive development. Trails labeled "Quality trails", such as the "Mullerthal Trail" (up 21%), the "Escapardenne" (up 161%) and the "Naturwanderpark DeLux" (up 130%), also experienced a significant increase in page views on the geoportail.lu site.

A similar trend emerged from data from Luxembourg for tourism (LFT). The visitluxembourg.com site achieved a 75.50% increase in page views on articles related to hiking. LFT also pointed out that the search interest for the keyword “hiking in Luxembourg” on Google increased by 35% compared to 2019.

The General Directorate for Tourism noted that, in light of the growing success of hiking trails and in order to meet the requirements of hikers, uniform standards regarding signage and markings will be put in place in the future.

A selection of particularly impressive hiking trails can be found at www.100thingstodo.lu.

Luxembourg's Minister of Tourism, Lex Delles, commented: "Impressive statistics show that hiking is booming in Luxembourg. It should be noted in this context that the number of tourists visiting Luxembourg fell in 2020 because of the repercussions related to the COVID-19 pandemic, which leads [us] to consider that the increase in interest in hiking is mainly due to to residents. Exploring the country on foot seems to have been one of the favourite pastimes of residents of the Grand Duchy in 2020, and rightly so. Hiking is certainly the best way to (re)discover Luxembourg. Our country has one of the densest pedestrian networks in Europe and we are keen to constantly improve the quality of our network, in particular through new signage. Finally, I would like to warmly thank the hiking trail maintenance teams".