Sustrans, the UK charity promoting sustainable transport, define cycle tourism as “recreational visits, either overnight or day visits away from home, which involve leisure cycling as a fundamental and significant part of the visit.”
A study commissioned by the European Parliament in 2012 estimated that there are over 2.2 billion cycle tourism trips and 20 million over-night cycle trips made every year in Europe. These have an estimated economic impact of €44 billion.
To learn more about our activities in terms of tourism policy, have a look on our dedicated page. ECF also manages EuroVelo, the European cycle route network. This ambitious project aims to create a network of long distance cycle routes crossing the continent by 2020. To get more information about that topic, you should have a look on www.eurovelo.org, which contains information about the network and its project partners.