New ambassador: Herre Dijkema, director RBT KAN
Herre Dijkema is director of the regional tourist board of the Arnhem-Nijmegen region and will help us put the Walk of Wisdom on the map. Herre has many contacts at home and abroad and a whole team of experts in the field of marketing.
The collaboration sometimes feels a bit strange: we don’t see our pilgrimage route as a ‘product’ to ‘put on the market’, while for Herre we are of course a means to attract more tourists to the region. On the other hand, we hope that more pilgrims will find the Walk of Wisdom so that a new pilgrimage tradition arises. Herre can help us in that search.
Pilgrims, with their continuous visits, are a sustainable form of tourism. It is nice if their spending contributes to a vital and healthy countryside and for pilgrims themselves it is only nice if there are good facilities to eat and spend the night along the way. With respect for each other’s differences, Walk of Wisdom and the tourist board can mean a lot to each other.
Herre, nice that you want to be an ambassador of our pilgrimage route. Have you walked a pilgrimage route yourself or do you know people who have done so?
I haven’t walked pilgrimage routes myself, but I have walked multi-day parts of long-distance walks such as the Maarten van Rossum path. My experience is that running for several days always offers a form of peace and space for conversation; This will be even more the case with pilgrimage routes.
The Walk of Wisdom is a pilgrimage route in our own country, independent of any religion. A week of walking with phone and internet off. How do you view this from your own expertise?
We notice that we are receiving more and more different groups of visitors in the region and different visitors also have different needs: there are also more and more visitors who are looking for slowing down and relaxation: away from the busy life. For example, there are already campsites where there is deliberately no WiFi in order to counterbalance the information society where you are always “on”.
The walking area around Nijmegen is experienced by many pilgrims as beautiful and incredibly diverse. Do you know any places there that you have fond memories of?
We have a hunting dog that we like to walk often and for a long time: one of the places where we like to walk is Beek-Ubbergen and especially the N70 walking route. An almost un-Dutch landscape around the edge of hill and floodplains with beautiful views.
What do you think wisdom actually is?
In my opinion, wisdom is often confused with having (a lot of) knowledge, but for me, wisdom is about asking questions. Asking questions will make you wiser than giving answers.
