VisitNorwich is anxious to balance the needs of the local community, the visitor and the environment by encouraging sustainable tourism for the destination. We also believe individual tourism businesses can achieve significant cost savings and image benefits if they subscribe to sustainable business practices. In addition, visitors are increasingly looking for evidence that businesses are acting in an environmentally responsible way and environmental good practice is more and more seen as synonymous with quality:
The facts speak for themselves:
• TripVision's tracking survey of UK travellers shows that environmental issues are of increasing importance to consumers
• Demand for holidays sold as “responsible” or “sustainable” is expected to increase 5-fold in the next five years (Mintel)
• Devon County Council survey of 400 visitors 2005:
- 54% consider environmental issues when booking
- 82% of visitors are willing to pay more for environmentally responsible products
- 72% think an environmentally aware business is more likely to be MORE quality conscious
• Small Luxury Hotels of the World Survey 2002: 80% of UK travellers are prepared to pay £30-£70 extra per fortnight to stay somewhere with a responsible environmental attitude
Sustainable good practice entails activities which not only have minimal environmental impact and encourage the use of local resources, but which also spread the benefits of tourism both across the destination and across the seasons, cutting out the peaks and the troughs.
VisitNorwich Sustainable Tourism Policy
Through this Policy VisitNorwich aims to:
1. Promote to member businesses a Code of Sustainable Best Practice, including relevant content, advice and dissemination
2. Promote best practice in sustainable tourism in terms of
• recycling
• waste reduction
• energy efficiency
• water conservation
• minimising pollution
• local sourcing
• transport
• wildlife and the natural environment
• employment and economy
3. Encourage tourism businesses to use and promote local goods and services, to support recycling initiatives, to foster energy efficiency, to do more to contribute to local community life and to employ people from the locality.
4. Develop an all-year round tourism destination to spread both the load and the benefits temporally and geographically.
5. Promote wider use of public and non-car modes of transport - trains, buses, park and ride, river boats - and greater participation in walking and cycling activities.
6. Work with partners in the development of sustainable tourism projects (and products) for the destination, e.g. sustainable tourism itineraries for the Broads, encouraging walking and cycling holidays (including improving the availability of bike hire), making bio-diesel available on the Broads, introducing a fleet of bio-diesel powered boats on the Broads/River etc.
7. Source research and data to determine the reality of the impact of tourism and the limits to sustainability
8. Adhere to its own Code of Sustainable Best Practice in its own operations.