Responsible Tourism at Best of Scotland Holidays
Visit Scotland cites Responsible Tourism as
“[Responsible Tourism is] all about a collaborative approach for re-building and growing the value of tourism. It does so in a way that makes better places for people to live and visit in every corner of Scotland. It maximises the positive benefits of tourism for everyone. This includes host communities and the environment.”
This approach to tourism can, of course, be taken in any destination.
As a Destination Management Company providing holidays throughout Britain and Ireland, how can we help our clients who wish to take this approach to their holiday; to become a temporary local? Firstly, we believe that the vast majority of our visitors are already taking a Responsible Tourist approach to their holiday by seeking experiences in destinations which provide a real sense of the local culture, history, people, food and drink. With the rise in interest in these experiences comes the rise in small local businesses providing these. Local people sharing stories, their knowledge and their environment, but overall their hospitality.
At Best of Scotland Holidays we are on our own journey both to become a responsible operator but to continue to help visitors to be responsible tourists, although there are aspects that have been part of our business ethos since we started. For many years we have included small local operators and suppliers in the itineraries we were creating for our visitors. Now with the increased number of options in almost every location we can include more. We have a selection of sample itineraries on our website using public transport including trains, however as all our itineraries are tailormade holidays we can, and do, include these in many programmes.
Please review our Responsible Visitor Charter for tips and ideas on how you can make positive impacts during your holiday here.
Green Tourism
We’re proud to share that we’ve achieved our Green Tourism Bronze Award! Since joining the programme, we’ve been working hard to review and enhance our business practices, embracing a more sustainable and responsible approach across our operations.
As a small company, it was encouraging to see that many of our existing efforts already aligned with the principles of a Responsible DMC. Achieving Bronze on our first submission was a fantastic milestone, especially given that the programme is primarily designed for venues and attractions. Adapting the criteria to fit a DMC model required creative thinking but delighted that this was recognised.
Our Next Steps
Where previously we contributed to the Woodland Trust Carbon Scheme, as part of our membership of SIGTOA, we decided as a company we would prefer to support a locally based charity. We are lucky to have the Fife Coast and Countryside Trust based in our hometown of Kirkcaldy. Having met with the Trust to discuss supporting them, we are delighted to be part of their Big Green Footprint Scheme and will be providing the Trust with a donation at the end of every season, based on the number of bookings we had that year. The donation will be used by the trust to support the conservation work they undertake in over 70 sites that are maintained by them including the Fife Coastal Path, Fife Pilgrim Way and the Lomond Hills Regional Park. Keep an eye on our SM for updates on this.
This is our starting point, but we will continue to build on these responsible and sustainable tourism foundations to support our visitors, suppliers and our team at Best of Scotland to contribute to positive impacts of tourism on the environment and host communities.
We have developed our Sustainability Policy which will continue to evolve as we progress with our responsible tourism course.
