Decarbonising the whole visitor journey for rural destinations

Nearly 7m Gen Z and Millennials in England can’t drive yet contribute about £18bn to England’s domestic visitor economy. Rural destinations that are set up for the majority of people to visit by car are already missing out, but perhaps more importantly, are they future-ready for this huge car-free-shaped slice of the future visitor economy pie?

The post-covid recovery in many rural visitor destinations in the UK has been patchy[i]. Many places have understandably been focusing on “more of the same” with regard to core visitor markets and – relevant here – how their visitors are expected » Continue Reading.

There is a lot of talk in relation to rural visitor destinations about pulling visitor traffic back from busy areas, with forms of park & ride (P&R) as part of the solution. The intention is welcome as it shows that the debate of visitor access management has moved on. But might there be a big carbon monster hiding behind park & ride as a component of the solution?

Firstly, let’s look overseas then come back closer to home.

The “traffic free” (= visitor car restricted) destinations in Europe such as Sass Fee, others in the Swiss alps » Continue Reading.

Does anything lead to a manning of the barricades more in the UK than discussions of taxation? Almost all of the visitor destinations at which I have been ogling during this study receive what we would consider significant year-on-year funding from different forms of visitor levy and business contributions (considered as investment, not subsidy – but more of that below). Does this mean visitor levies are a must in the UK? It’s just not that simple.

Perhaps the most notable difference between my study destinations and UK destinations is the culture and mechanisms of how things are funded, the locality » Continue Reading.

The reluctant poster-children of Venice, the Acropolis and Mt Fuji suggest that overtourism is the preserve of the global bucket list destinations. My recent visits to neighbouring similar sized villages – two car-free, one not – suggests that even in the smallest places, it is a problem. Closer to home, it is almost becoming a depressing norm that summer in the Lake District triggers occasional reports of air ambulances being needed and bus services being suspended due to congested roads.

So welcome to Wengen (pop: 1,300, 372,287 visitor nights per year, visitor intensity (i.e. » Continue Reading.

I’m being squirted back into the real world both in reality – courtesy of Eurostar – and as my glorious trip comes to an end – so now lots of Zoom meetings and writing up. For those of a certain age, it’s like the little man “that popped upfrom nowhere” to invite Mr Ben back to reality.

You may have spotted that my trip also involved quite a bit of running – often to compost thoughts after meetings. In Saas Fee, I found myself in the most surreal position of accidentally running through the finishing straights of a half marathon » Continue Reading.

Responsibility – both formal and felt – for visitor travel carbon crosses many different types of organisation and scales – from trans-national to sub-destination scale. Given the complexity, absolute responsibility is a bit of a hot potato and often viewed as SEP (Someone Else’s Problem). This doesn’t mean that the sense of importance by individuals and cultures within organisations is not genuine, but that the lack of formal responsibility means that other priorities are more important for them. In short, if carbon emissions aren’t cut, no-one is going to get the sack.

Given that this is how things are, what » Continue Reading.

Apart from the deafening alarm bells ringing about the impacts of carbon emissions, I find (the resulting) collapsing of glaciers really … sad. I’m not alone; I read a brilliant article by Bernd Ritchel in an Otztal visitor magazine in 2019 almost grieving for the loss of familiar glaciers “My thoughts revolve around the tours of my youth and my helplessness in the face of global warming… all I can do now is to be grateful and to enjoy what is still left”.

I wandered the margins of the Langflue and Feegletscher this afternoon above Saas Fee. It was » Continue Reading.

Oh heck. I’m giddy after a meeting with Matthias Supersaxo, head of Sass Fee Tourismus (and a big thank you for your time Matthias).

In short… OK, Saas Fee “the pearl of the alps” is a bit drop-dead gorgeous… mountains and glaciers keeping guard over the village, traditional timber barns and houses mixed in with inevitable newer visitor accommodation buildings.

But the bit making me giddy is the transport & tourism stuff. I’m here to dig underneath both Saas Fee being car-free and the Saastal Card.

Sass Fee was only connected by road to the rest of » Continue Reading.

We found ourselves chatting to a bus driver on Spetses yesterday. He’d been driving for decades, and fairly unprompted opened up about changes on the island.

He bemoaned what has happened in the last 25 years, especially the mopeds everywhere spoiling the calm that used to characterise the island. He said that there used to be buses 26 times per day, compared to the current 5. “Everyone” used to use the buses, water buses and water taxis. There are still water taxis, but they are priced as a treat.

This changes the whole idea of how the island’s mobility used » Continue Reading.