Why VisitScotland declared a climate emergency & what it means for tourism

As has been widely repor­ted in both industry and main­stream media, Vis­itScot­land has joined oth­er travel & tour­ism organ­isa­tions in “declar­ing a cli­mate emer­gency”. In this “Good Tour­ism” Insight, trends strategist Chris Green­wood shares the early devel­op­ments of the Scot­tish nation­al tour­ism board’s emer­gency response and its implic­a­tions for stakeholders.

As we look ahead to whatever the future might hold for our tour­ism and events industry, we reflect on what we can do to make sure we build back bet­ter. With the tour­ism industry facing huge chal­lenges due to the pan­dem­ic, our plans for the next year and bey­ond recog­nise the import­ance of bal­an­cing neces­sary busi­ness sur­viv­al with a sus­tain­able and respons­ible recov­ery. It’s import­ant we are at the fore­front of this pos­it­ive con­tri­bu­tion tour­ism can make, in line with the nation­al tour­ism strategy, Scot­land Out­look 2030, ambi­tion for respons­ible growth.

This year will see Glas­gow, Scotland’s largest city, host COP26. As a sig­ni­fic­ant glob­al event and the inter­na­tion­al response to the cli­mate emer­gency, it’s import­ant Scot­land con­tin­ues to accel­er­ate its own activ­ity in address­ing cli­mate change. We recog­nise tour­ism is not exempt from this, des­pite the immense chal­lenges the industry faces due to the coronavir­us pandemic.

That’s why, last Novem­ber, with one year to go until this import­ant event, Vis­itScot­land became the first nation­al tour­ism organ­isa­tion to join the Tour­ism Declares ini­ti­at­ive. Join­ing with our industry part­ners, Wild Scot­land and Sail Scot­land, we’ve pub­lished our respons­ible tour­ism plans and com­mit­ment to address­ing cli­mate emergency. 

We joined a grow­ing list of over 100 travel groups, busi­nesses and indi­vidu­als who have declared under the ban­ner Tour­ism Declares a Cli­mate Emer­gency, an ini­ti­at­ive com­mit­ted to com­ing togeth­er to find solu­tions to the cli­mate crisis. We have com­mit­ted to work with the sec­tor to encour­age a respons­ible tour­ism approach for a sus­tain­able future, which will be espe­cially import­ant as it recov­ers from COVID-19. It is about recog­nising the impact of our industry in the cli­mate change dis­cus­sion and, in part, seek­ing to future-proof the sector.

We are look­ing for­ward to work­ing with Tour­ism Declares and our fel­low sig­nat­or­ies to not only share best prac­tice and ideas, but also fur­ther devel­op guid­ance and sup­port for des­tin­a­tions, as well as busi­nesses such as accom­mod­a­tion pro­viders and tour oper­at­ors, on how to take effect­ive action on cli­mate change.

In addi­tion, there are a range of activ­it­ies we are plan­ning across dif­fer­ent areas, such as:

Low-carbon transport

Our plans include a long-term com­mit­ment to the increased pro­mo­tion of low-car­bon and envir­on­ment­ally-friendly forms of trans­port – such as pub­lic trans­port, elec­tric cars and bikes, and walk­ing and cyc­ling, as well as max­im­ising the trans­form­a­tion­al bene­fits of host­ing the UCI Cyc­ling World Cham­pi­on­ships in 2023.

Green industry practices

There are sev­er­al oth­er pieces of activ­ity to sup­port respons­ible devel­op­ment already under­way at Vis­itScot­land. These include advice for tour­ism and events busi­nesses through the industry engage­ment pro­gramme, such as pro­mot­ing low car­bon growth through green tour­ism prac­tices (e.g. energy effi­ciency, pro­mot­ing low car­bon trans­port, redu­cing food waste and sourcing qual­ity loc­al food and drink). Mean­while our themed years pro­gramme, Scotland’s Year of Coasts and Waters 2021, encour­ages respons­ible engage­ment and par­ti­cip­a­tion, includ­ing encour­aging sus­tain­able event operations.

Visitor management

We’ll be devel­op­ing our work on vis­it­or man­age­ment, which has been ongo­ing; par­tic­u­larly fol­low­ing the first nation­al COVID-19 lock­down. Key to imple­ment­ing a respons­ible and sus­tain­able tour­ism des­tin­a­tion is the man­age­ment and imple­ment­a­tion of region­al and sea­son­al spread. This will min­im­ise the pres­sure seen through over­tour­ism and sup­port the vis­it­or eco­nomy and com­munit­ies through year-round income and job retention.

In addi­tion to this work, we are look­ing at ways to eval­u­ate the over­all value of domest­ic and inter­na­tion­al vis­it­ors in terms of fin­an­cial as well as envir­on­ment­al and social impact, to ensure we are tar­get­ing mar­kets and vis­it­ors aligned to our over­all vision.

Destination infrastructure

The ongo­ing dis­tri­bu­tion of the Rur­al Tour­ism Infra­struc­ture Fund, cre­ated by the Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment, provides extra fund­ing for infra­struc­ture pro­jects to alle­vi­ate pres­sure points and sup­port respons­ible tour­ism prac­tices, includ­ing for example, fund­ing for elec­tric vehicle charge points and Chan­ging Places’ access­ible toilets.

Relationships & collaboration

We’ll seek to strengthen exist­ing rela­tion­ships with rel­ev­ant part­ners, such as Zero Waste Scot­land, Energy Sav­ing Trust, Green Tour­ism, Keep Scot­land Beau­ti­ful, Trans­port Scot­land, and Sus­trans to enhance know­ledge and under­stand­ing of the chal­lenges and oppor­tun­it­ies to tackle cli­mate change.

National target

While col­lab­or­a­tion is import­ant, we also want to make sure that our own house is in order which is why we are com­mit­ted to achiev­ing Scotland’s ambi­tious tar­get of Net­Zero green-house gasses by 2045, with pro­gress repor­ted annually. 

These are incred­ibly chal­len­ging times for busi­nesses across the coun­try and as we nav­ig­ate through the pan­dem­ic our actions are under­pinned by the need for a respons­ible recov­ery. The declar­a­tions of our industry part­ners Wild Scot­land and Sail Scot­land, and most recently Keep Scot­land Beau­ti­ful, and activ­ity hol­i­days spe­cial­ists Wil­der­ness Scot­land before them, rep­res­ent the strength of col­lect­ive feel­ing that exists across the industry to rebuild respons­ibly and pro­tect our com­munit­ies and nat­ur­al envir­on­ment for gen­er­a­tions to come.

What do you think? Share a short anec­dote or com­ment below. Or write a deep­er “GT” Insight. The “Good Tour­ism” Blog wel­comes diversity of opin­ion and per­spect­ive about travel & tour­ism because travel & tour­ism is everyone’s business.

Fea­tured image (top of post): Uath Lochans, Kin­gussie, Scot­land. By Vis­itScot­land / Dami­an Shields.

About the author

Chris Green­wood is Seni­or Insight Man­ager at Vis­itScot­land, help­ing tour­ism busi­nesses, policy makers, and stake­hold­ers under­stand the future vis­it­or eco­nomy. A post­gradu­ate of Durham Uni­ver­sity, Chris has worked for more than 20 years in data research and ana­lyt­ics across sev­er­al industry sec­tors and has authored numer­ous pub­lic­a­tions on tour­ism top­ics such as exchange rates, food tour­ism and scen­ario plan­ning. Increas­ingly involved in under­stand­ing and inter­pret­ing the role and impact of a respons­ible vis­it­or eco­nomy, his back­ground in earth sci­ences and ana­lyt­ics provides a sound found­a­tion for under­stand­ing the sys­tems that influ­ence sus­tain­able tourism.