Going urbanana

Since 2016, the urbanana project addresses the polycentric urban jungle that extends from the Rhineland to the Ruhr region. It was launched by the Cologne Tourist Board and its partners Düsseldorf Tourism and Ruhr Tourism under the leadership of Tourismus NRW. This banana was already ripe — a fact already confirmed by the huge popularity of the Cologne Tourist Board focus areas urbanCGN and Culinary Cologne. You can find a compilation of this content in our visit.koeln blog. Since then, the urbanana team explores Cologne and the banana-shaped metropolitan region, focusing not on traditional tourist attractions but on the region’s creative quarters. Our measures and campaigns shine a spotlight on the region’s hospitality, and reveal the hidden creativity distributed throughout the entire project region. Further, guests to Cologne are since then invited to creative shared experiences instead of passive consumption.

Diverse themes and creative thinkers make our urban banana well worth seeing. This is why the Cologne Tourist Board works in the project urbanana to expand and reinforce local scenes such as music and urban art. In August 2018, the Cologne Tourist Board welcomed the Music Tourism Convention: By organizing the biggest music tourism conference we were able to highlight the significance of the local music scene for Cologne and the surrounding region. It doesn’t stop there – we provide insight into other urban themes via innovative formats: urban Art Walks through Cologne’s street art scene, as well as excursions into the history of pop in the metropolitan region via the web app “Sound of urbanana”. Too much input? Don’t fret – we regularly keep you updated with our English-language information resources. They include city maps focusing on art, as well as blogs and magazines that offer a closer look at Cologne’s creative scene and the two other urbanana regions: the Ruhr region and Düsseldorf.

Since 2019, the urbanana team has stayed on the ball. With a broader focus, which now also includes projects, ideas and players from the digital landscape of Cologne and NRW, we are turning our gaze toward the features that make Cologne a place where people come and want to stay. You can find answers and inspiration in the information tiles, at urbanana.de and on our social media channels @goingurbanana (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter).
Take a look: Join us as we explore our metropolitan region and our favourite places in Cologne. Take a look at liveable neighbourhoods and get to know the ideas that are springing up from the asphalt all over urbanana, as well as the people behind them.