And the nominees for 'Best Europe Tourism Project' are... 

Centre for Comics and Interactive Narrative

Łódź, Poland

Łódź, a city in Poland, hosts the annual International Festival of Comics and Games so it is appropriate that it should be the first city to open a centre celebrating this media. Funds from the European Union and the City of Łódź facilitated the creation of The Center for Comics and Interactive Narrative in the EC1 City of Culture complex. It is one of five museums on the site of the electric power station. Once the heart of the textile industry in Poland, Łódź has re-invented itself gaining recognition as a UNESCO Creative City. 

Cutting edge museums and creative spaces occupy the huge, old factory buildings and this is one of them - fully dedicated to the culture of comics and video games. Visitors can follow the history of comics and video games in Poland and worldwide. They can enter the world of the Witcher, a favourite character here. Workstations offer the opportunity to create their own characters for either media, or simply employ interactive games to learn the process behind their creation. 

It has brought life back to an area that was abandoned and desolate and brings visitors to the city to enjoy this unique museum.  

Dinant Citadel – Augmented Reality

Dinant, Belgium

Dinant Citadel is one of Wallonia’s most visited historical landmarks, attracting around 350,000 visitors each year. The site’s owners, the de Villenfagne family, consistently invest in enhancing the visitor experience. 

June 2025 saw the launch of the HistoPad, a multilingual augmented reality tablet available in eight languages. Using the tablet, visitors can enjoy a self-guided tour, reliving 900 years of history through fully immersive, 360° historical reconstructions, all based on rigorous scientific research. 

The visitor journey is delivered through 13 ‘Time Windows’, each focusing on key moments in Dinant’s history, from the 11th century to the First World War.

The tourism project has been delivered in partnership with Histovery, a French company that uses innovation to enrich cultural heritage. Already in use in over 20 heritage sites worldwide, reaching nearly three million visitors annually, Dinant Citadel is the first site in Belgium to be equipped with the HistoPad.

The visitor attraction says the Histopad, together with other improvements to the site, is helping to attract more visitors to this part of Wallonia and delivering an economic boost to the local visitor economy.

FENIX Museum of Migration

Rotterdam, The Netherlands

The Fenix Museum of Migration, located within a former warehouse in Rotterdam, is a museum dedicated to human migration. It was opened on 16 May 2025. Here you’ll find stories about love and farewell, home and feeling at home, navigating identity or seeking happiness. Stories from the past and present, from here and elsewhere.

Fenix is housed in a historic harbour warehouse dating back to 1923. Once the world’s largest trans-shipment warehouse, it was designed by architect Cornelis van Goor and built for the Holland-America Line. Back then, it was known as the San Francisco Warehouse, stretching 360 metres along the quay. 

The Holland-American Line facilitated the migration of millions of Europeans to the US in the late 19th and early 20th century. Others arrived from countries including China, Cape Verde, and Greece. Famous figures including Albert Einstein and artist Max Beckmann departed from Rotterdam. 

At Fenix, you’ll experience migration through the eyes of international artists including Shilpa Gupta, Steve McQueen, Rineke Dijkstra, and Kimsooja, or get swept away by hundreds of documentary photos in The Family of Migrants. In The Suitcase Labyrinth, you’ll hear personal stories from travellers themselves. The restaurant serves dishes that travel with people from all over the world.

Posten Moderne (PoMo)

Trondheim, Norway

The new Norwegian private art museum Posten Moderne, also known as PoMo, achieves three objectives. Housed in Trondheim’s old Art Nouveau post office it preserves an historic building, one close to the hearts of the town’s residents. It includes a permanent, private collection of 55 works by Edvard Munch. It addresses gender inequality in Norwegian art as 60% of its growing permanent collection will be works of art created by women. The aim is to apply this objective in relation to its programme of twice-yearly temporary exhibitions.

Outside and inside PoMo is an interesting mix of traditional Norwegian architecture and modern designs. The latter can be seen in connecting spaces including the pink shop and the orange staircase. Colourful, accessible galleries on five floors, some featuring one installation, aim to break down barriers between art lovers and strangers to art by creating spaces where the latter will feel comfortable and ready to explore. 

It is expected this new art museum will enhance Trondheim’s growing reputation as a globally important centre for art and attract more visitors to the city and more work for its inhabitants.

Schwebodrom

Wuppertal, Germany

The Schwebebahn, the world's oldest hanging railway, is celebrated in this engrossing museum in Wuppertal in Germany's industrial heartland. Set near one of the railway's Art Nouveau stations, the Schwebodrom museum uses three galleries to show the fascinating history of Wuppertal's hanging railway, which has been running for nearly 125 years. The first gallery shows an impressionistic film revealing how and why the railway was built, and the second tells the many stories surrounding the Schwebebahn over the past 125 years. The final gallery is the most enthralling: a replica carriage invites you to sit with a VR headset and be transported back to 1920s Wuppertal as you virtually ride the railways. It's a fine example of a sustainable and environmentally friendly form of public transport being given such a detailed, compelling and educational focus. As it's all on one level, it's easily accessible to people with limited mobility, and all of the exhibits are available in English as well as German. While other cities in Germany such as Berlin get much more attention – and tourists – this is a way of bringing people to one of the country's lesser-known but still delightful cities.