Decarbonising the whole visitor journey for rural destinations

I’m getting into the soundscapes of different types of destinations. Ghent was all about “busy calmness” and a hubbub, but in the last week I’ve been to the two Greek islands of Hydra and Spetses. Whilst just over a dozen km apart and both car-free, they couldn’t be more different. Hydra was all calm chatter, an occasional distant drone of a ferry or boat and the braying of its donkeys; if this sounds rather idyllic, it was.

Whilst Spetses is car-free for visitors, this doesn’t extend to mopeds. Did I mention mopeds? Forget calm chatter … Spetses’ soundscape » Continue Reading.

Oh dear. First step of Venice to Greece by ferry, car free… i.e. getting to the big ferry from Venice. Ugh.

Even the swamps of the internet provide no useful information and there was a perpetual sense of the best laid plans being defeated and our booked and paid for ferry sailing by without us.

Google maps was no use here. The key local ferry from Venice to its detached main ferry port didn’t appear and the ferry terminal was just blank space. Somewhere deep in the bowels of a Google search was a post of glee suggesting that this » Continue Reading.

Imagine you could go to some rural area, maybe a national park, and you had a guarantee that you could get from the mainline station and get around, not just the odd bus now and then, but by all sorts of ways – bikes, e-bikes etc.

Ta-dah! It’s called “Guaranteed mobility” and places like Werfenweng and Mallnitz in Austria – both part of the Alpine Pearls network – are close to just that. Here’s what our last few days in Werfenweng looked like. But before I get going, I’ll admit that I am not normal; seeking out “best » Continue Reading.

Brandishing our Interrail card like overgrown students, we boarded the 06.47 from our home village of Staveley in Cumbria this morning. When I return, the leaves will be turning and schools will be all back. Ghent by nightfall. This really is the way to travel. A 2 month Interrail pass for a family of 3 for under £1k. We’re reading the weekend newspaper, drinking coffee, sleeping, playing games, walking around… Far more pleasant than flying, roomier, less hassle, far cheaper…oh, and massively less carbon. And we have the gorgeousness of St Pancras and the Eurostar buzz to look forward to.

I’ve had really great conversations recently with people in the UK which have led to a crystalising of ideas around how future visitors are likely to want to travel and what the future visitor business landscape might look like. The only certainty is that on the key milestones for decarbonisation – 2030, 2037, 2040, 2050 – these will be different from today.

Looking to other places, it’s clear that sustainability generally is a more mainstream and up-front part of visitor marketing, whether this be for specific destinations (such as Seefeld or Werfenweng) or complementary services by mainstream transport » Continue Reading.

Do I sense that extolling not just the benefits (and let’s face it, sense of worthiness) but the joys and quality of experience of being a visitor-without-a-car is coming out of the shadows?

Some areas of the mainstream UK press are really getting their act together on this (such as the Guardian/Observer at weekends, especially Pheobe Taplin), whilst others are still resolutely banging on with their antediluvian views on decarbonisation (do I need to list these?).

So it was with some happiness that I tripped over the following two articles:

Sophie Pavelle in the Guradian I travelled around » Continue Reading.

I had a great conversation this week with Karmen Mentil – ex-director of the Alpine Pearls and recognised leader on tourism sustainability.

It was clear that Covid was a bit of a watershed in tourism and transport in Alpine destinations – as it has been in so many other walks of life. It sounds familiar from a UK perspective that the disruption of the tourism sector has challenged the motivations of some destinations to maintain and develop their sustainable transport offer.

However, it was great to hear of successes such as Seefeld’s pioneer status of being awarded » Continue Reading.