Tourism

Opportunities for sustainable growth in Scotland

Industry strategy Sustainable tourism is highlighted in the industry strategy Tourism Scotland 2020 as a key underpinning capability. This paper summarises the economic opportunities for Scotland and is aimed at public and private sector organisations who provide advice to tourism businesses and industry bodies. It should be read in conjunction with the Scottish Tourism Alliance’s objectives for promoting and addressing sustainable tourism and offers further intelligence and signposting to help businesses capitalise on the economic opportunities from becoming more sustainable.

Given that a key attractor for many visitors to Scotland is the high quality of its distinctive natural landscape and historic and cultural assets, it is essential that the Scottish tourism industry acknowledges, manages and actively enhances these resources.

What are the opportunities for sustainable tourism?Driven by national policies and by more demanding consumers, sustainability is becoming more embedded in the public consciousness. Tourism products will need to become more sustainable to attract more discerning consumers, help generate new sources of value and reduce environmental impacts. Sustainable Tourism can be viewed as a market opportunity at different levels:

1. Strategic marketing and positioning of Scotland – ensuring that the marketing of Scottish Tourism globally is aligned with our sustainable tourism objectives.

As featured in the Year of Natural Scotland promotion and through networks such as Wild Scotland, our landscape, scenery and wildlife are huge attractions for visitors and are vitally important economic assets. Research by Scottish Natural Heritage notes that total visitor spending attributable to nature-based tourism per year is £1.4 billion with 39,000 associated FTE jobs.

Attractions such as the 7 Stanes mountain biking network draw heavily on the environment as part of their appeal and over 1.3 million mountain bike visits are made in Scotland each year to built trail centres and wider countryside visits. Market growth could be achieved by encouraging more mountain biking visitors to the country, lengthening their stay, increasing spend and ensuring they have easy access to up to date information on the mountain biking activity available to them.

2. Providing authentic experiences through design and delivery of more sustainable tourism products and services.

In our destinations, towns and cities, sustainability should feature more prominently as part of the diversity of things to see and do and actions to improve sustainability should be considered as integral to destination development strategies.

In Glasgow, a green tourism destination initiative, the Greener Glasgow Tourism Project, is helping businesses to improve their profitability through better environmental practice. There is an opportunity to use the publicity surrounding the 2014 Commonwealth Games to increase sustainable practices in tourism businesses, as well as increase membership of environmental certification schemes such as the Green Tourism Business Scheme.

As Scotland develops its reputation as a world-leading destination for events and festivals, there are opportunities to embed sustainability more meaningfully as part of these. Event Scotland has produced a Food and Drink guide on local sourcing for events and festivals, as well as a Sustainable Sport and Event toolkit. Event Scotland has also provided Sustainable Events training workshops for event organisers to encourage them to make their events more sustainable.

As well as helping to reduce the seasonality of tourism demand in Scotland through conferences and events out with the summer season, there are further opportunities to embed sustainability as part of the development of business tourism in Scotland. These include: good environmental practice within the facilities themselves, opportunities associated with travel (such as promoting extended stays and sustainable travel options), event organisation and the business tourism supply chain. The Edinburgh International Conference Centre (EICC) is a great example of embedding

sustainability in the corporate tourism sector. As well as striving to reduce CO2 emissions, improve recycling and reduce waste across its internal office operations, the venue has initiated a special “Plan-it Green” programme for clients – allowing them to create individually-tailored sustainable events and conferences at the EICC.

3. Improving the customer journey by improving business capabilities and enhancing visitor experiences and value. Whilst there are good examples of tourism businesses incorporating sustainability into their core activities and enhancing their ‘green credentials’, there is a significant opportunity for companies to improve operational efficiencies by delivering actions in the areas highlighted below.

Research shows that visitors prefer to buy food with local provenance, sold with an explicit reference to source. Their perception is that food ‘with a story behind it’ is of better quality and visitors are willing to pay more for food that they know is of Scottish or regional origin. Businesses and events providing local food enhance the visitor experience and typically enjoy a sales premium of around 20%. Local food (and organic food) has wide sustainability and local economic development benefits that align with the Food and Drink Strategy Fresh Thinking and its promotion of foods of Scottish provenance.

Across Scotland a range of Local Food networks are working to connect local producers, retailers, restaurants and consumers to promote the best of their local food and drink. For example, Taste of Arran is a consortium for marketing and distribution of food and drink produced on the island. Local restaurants offer seasonal produce, shops sell local food and drink products and some producers offer tours to the public.

Tourism businesses can help their customers to reduce their local transport impacts in a number of ways and this can open up new markets and encourage visitors to stay longer. Examples include promoting ideas for car-free days out, and visitor attractions working with transport providers to offer discounted travel. Offsetting is a way of compensating for the emissions produced with an equivalent carbon saving through planting trees, investing in energy efficiency or helping to finance renewable energy projects. There are a number of offsetting companies operating

within Scotland such as Forest Carbon. There are no specific offsetting organisations for the tourism sector in Scotland, although there is the UK Tourism Industry Carbon Offset Service.

The design and management of buildings for accommodation and visitor attractions has a significant impact on the use and management of energy, waste, water and materials. There’s a need to encourage tourist operators and customers to be as resource efficient as possible, saving money in the process. This includes actions to improve energy efficiency and installation of renewable energy systems such as biomass heating systems which have seen a big uptake within the tourism industry.

Challenges • Sustainability is not currently a priority for some tourism businesses. It needs

to be positioned as a market opportunity, not an obligation, focusing on where there can be clear alignment between business, environmental and social goals to meet visitor needs and expectations. Language matters, though, so highlighting the market opportunities and business efficiencies associated with responsible tourism may help overcome negative perceptions.

• There is a perception that tourism is ‘bad’ for carbon emissions, and there can be tensions between sustainability objectives. However, carbon efficiencies in tourism are possible without harming the economic benefit of tourism. In general, efforts should be concentrated on increasing the value of tourism. Prolonging the length of stay of existing tourists would have significant economic and carbon benefits, for example.

• It isn’t clear to what extent sustainability affects visitor decisions. Whilst visitor surveys consistently show that the environment is important, this is not always reflected in spending decisions. Further evidence is needed.

• The Waste (Scotland) Regulations, effective from 1st January 2014, require all businesses to recycle plastic, metal, glass, paper and card. Additionally, any food business that produces more than 50kg of food waste each week must present it for separate collection, which will then extend to all food businesses producing 5kg or more of food waste each week from 1st January 2016. However, food businesses in rural areas may be exempt from the food waste regulations. Advice on the changes to Scotland’s Waste Regulations can be found at: www.resourceefficientscotland.com/regulations

• The industry is diverse and there is a high staff turnover, both at management level and customer facing. Centralised decision making and responsibility is a significant barrier for some tourism businesses that may belong to an international chain, with a group purchasing department and/or outsourced facilities contracts.

Sustainability drivers and enablers• Industry leadership and strong collaboration are vital in responding

effectively to the challenges and opportunities provided by climate change. Collaboration brings a range of benefits including greater resilience and adaptability and stronger cohesiveness through cross-industry collaboration, for example, across tourism, energy and food supply chains.

• Increased industry innovation is essential to minimise resource use and offer distinctive tourism experiences in terms of products, processes, markets and locations. Effective marketing will also be an important component, helping to promote Scotland’s unique and contemporary tourism appeal within a changing and highly competitive global market.

• Corporate responsibility and sustainable purchasing policies of organisations that work with accommodation providers and event venues are drivers for the tourism industry. Increasingly, these businesses are making procurement and purchasing decisions on the basis of suppliers’ commitment to sustainability.

• Resource Efficient Scotland, a Scottish Government funded programme from Zero Waste Scotland, helps organisations across Scotland save money and grow by using energy, water and materials more efficiently. It provides free, specialist advice, on-site support and access to funding to help decision makers in business, public and third-sector organisations cut their energy, water and raw material costs.

Delivering the opportunities – resource and support available• Scottish Enterprise offers a range of support to tourism businesses,

including account management services, innovation grants, lean management and sustainability specialist support. This can help companies to embed sustainability as part of their business planning, for instance by putting in place an environmental management system which helps to plan for delivering efficiencies in areas such as energy, waste, water, transport and materials.

• VisitScotland is working towards making Scotland one of the most sustainable destinations in Europe. It supports and encourages tourism businesses to increasingly adopt sustainable practices, relevant advice and support is being incorporated into the Quality Assurance visit. VisitScotland’s Sustainable Tourism Resource Centre provides information for tourism businesses on how to become sustainable in their business practices. VisitScotland also offers a wide range of advice and marketing opportunities, national and international, for businesses to get involved in, to promote themselves to visitors and the travel trade.

• The Green Tourism Business Scheme (GTBS) encourages businesses to aim for high sustainability standards, and provides them with a credible way to illustrate their sustainable practices and the confidence to access a growing market. Members receive advice specific to their business, have access to marketing opportunities and discounts from suppliers of ‘low carbon’ and sustainable products. The scheme has over 800 members in Scotland.

• The Hospitality and Food Service Agreement is managed in Scotland by Zero Waste Scotland and offers advice and support to businesses in the sector to reduce food and packaging waste and recycle more. The Agreement covers all aspects of the industry and is open to all sizes and types of organisation.

• Skills Development Scotland offer a training grant from their Low Carbon Skills Fund. SMEs can claim up to 50% of eligible training costs. This could cover energy efficiency, environmental management and green tourism products and services.

• Tourism Intelligence Scotland offers market information to businesses through a range of useful on-line resources.

• The Green Traveller website markets sustainable and eco-friendly holidays with links to green accommodation providers, public transport and green products.

• Experiencing Scotland provides one-to-one business advice and support on how to promote authentic local food and drink as a way of ensuring a better visitor experience.

• VisitScotland’s ‘Taste Our Best’. Quality Assurance food and drink award scheme, aims to stimulate the use and promotion of Scottish produce in addition to recognising and raising quality standards.

If you would like to find out more about growth opportunities in sustainable tourism, please contact your Scottish Enterprise Account Manager or Business Gateway Adviser

Please email: enquiries@scotent.co.uk or call our helpline on: 0845 607 8787

If you would like to receive the full Tourism report, please contact neil.kitching@scotent.co.uk