We all like to travel to new places, experience new things and if the last 12 months has taught us anything it’s that we need to make the most of what’s around us and that includes visiting more attractions and tourist destinations where possible.

With increasing headlines about sustainability and how we can do our part, visitors are becoming a lot more conscious of the decisions they’re making and how it impacts the environment around them.

If your visitor attraction is already practising sustainability then keep doing what you’re doing and shout about it so your visitors know the great work you’re putting in to help the environment and your attractions impact on that. If you’re not yet practising sustainability or have measures in place to help keep your park sustainable then it’s time to take a action and do something about it.

What does sustainability actually mean for visitor attractions?

There’s lots of talk in the media about achieving the ultimate goal of becoming carbon neutral, this is a great aspiration for many attractions but unfortunately not a realistic one. If you can get your attraction to achieve net-zero carbon by all means go for it, but it’s more realistic to set the goal of becoming a more sustainable attraction.

A good place to start is looking at each area of your attraction and understanding what decisions have been made and why? Sustainability shouldn’t be a scary word, it should be something that is taken into account when decisions are made, such as food wastage and impacts on the environment. We’re not saying you need to suddenly adopt new practices but rather take into account your actions and how you can help your community and environment become more sustainable. A good place to start could be to write up your sustainability pledge, what is your attraction setting out to do and how will you achieve it. Having a sustainability policy may help you commit to the changes you plan to make, why not check out the Eden Project’s policy as an example. As a customer of VisiSoft we know they are absolutely dedicated to making their attraction as sustainable as possible.
How can your visitor attraction make a difference to sustainability?

You don’t have to spend lots of money to make a difference, you can start small and as you improve your visitor attraction’s sustainability you can start to think bigger. Making adjustments such as eliminating single use plastic from around your attraction can be very impactful. Adding lots of recycling points around your attraction and promoting recycling at visitor touch points is a great idea to, it let’s visitors get involved in being sustainable too, and is fairly cheap to implement.

Other ways to make an impact could be; switching to green energy suppliers or sources, or implementing your own source of sustainable and renewable energy. Encouraging your visitors to use public transport to get to you, rather than driving individually, this could be promoting ‘how to find us’ information on your website and social media platforms so visitors know there are bus/ train routes or even somewhere to store their bikes if you have regular local visitors. Adding areas to your attraction that promote the environment such as tree planting and gardens for natural wildlife.

Source: https://www.ontheluce.com