EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW VisitScotland’s Beth Hutchison on Sustainable Tourism

Beth Hutchison has just got the big new sustainable tourism job at VisitScotland (Planning & Sustainability Manager). Valere Tjolle took the opportunity of talking to her about it and how she sees our sustainable future.

Sustainable means so much more than green…
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Q: What do you think about your new job!?
A: The Planning and Sustainability Manager role is a new post within VisitScotland. The dual focus of the role, encompassing both organisational planning and sustainability presents a fantastic opportunity to integrate sustainable development considerations into all VisitScotland activities and its engagement with industry and visitors.  With sustainable development a mainstream policy priority, VisitScotland can already highlight many areas in which it is working to integrate sustainability into its operations and projects.  The creation of the role and the development of a Sustainable Tourism Strategy for VisitScotland, will provide a structured, proactive response to the issue of sustainable tourism in Scotland.

Q: What do you see as the greatest sustainable tourism achievement to date?
A: The world-leading Scottish Climate Change Bill will introduce targets to reduce emissions by 80 per cent by 2050, and will drive new thinking, new solutions, and new technologies putting Scotland at the forefront of building a sustainable low carbon economy.

Q: What are VisitScotland current sustainability targets?
A: VisitScotland is committed to ensuring the industry continues to innovate, think and act in relation to sustainability. Scotland is in an extremely enviable position, whereby we are able to offer the qualities increasingly sought by visitors.  Scotland is already perceived as a ‘clean, green’ destination, with 80% of visitors saying that the environment is what they like best about the country. We are committed to protecting our brand and on delivering the promise. 

We are currently developing a Sustainability Strategy and the aim of this is to inform VisitScotland colleagues, the tourism industry and tourism businesses to help them develop and implement strategies and activities in Scotland to ensure their work in tourism contributes towards a sustainable future for the country.     We aim to make VisitScotland the sustainable national tourism organisation, recognised for our efforts to reduce the environmental impact, and maximise the economic and social benefits, of our own operations.

The strategy is based upon the vision for 2015
“VisitScotland aspires to make Scotland the most economically, environmentally and socially sustainable destination in Europe.  As an organisation, we aim to be recognised as a leader in sustainable tourism development, not just within Scotland but at a European and World level.” 

In brief, the strategy outlines our intentions to address sustainability through:

•    our internal operations; environmental targets (e.g. the energy we use, the business miles we travel etc) 
•    engaging with our visitors through our marketing campaigns and visitor information centres
•    engaging with tourism businesses by providing quality assurance and business advice
•    working in partnership with key tourism players and the Sustainable Tourism Partnership. 

 
Q: VisitScotland has made tremendous strides in sustainable tourism in the last few years. Where do you see its involvement leading, and what are the next few steps?
A: Tourism will be at the centre of the Scottish economy as we move further into the 21st Century.  VisitScotland and our partners recognise that sustainability is central to achieving this.  The industry also has a greater awareness of the strengths we have in our natural, historical and cultural assets and in our people and our way of life and they need care and attention to ensure they remain strengths for many years to come.  Tourism has been with us for hundreds of years and will be with us for hundreds of years to come provided we protect our core assets and reputation and exploit these responsibly. Everything we do is designed to achieve this. Indeed, our current Green Tourism Business Scheme is the biggest of its kind in Europe.

As the lead agency for tourism in Scotland, VisitScotland continues to have an important role to play in sustainable tourism.  VisitScotland aims to incorporate sustainable principles into all that we do both internally, and in our activities with other public agencies, tourism businesses and visitors.

VisitScotland believes that all tourism has the potential to be more sustainable – not just “green”, “eco” or “wildlife” tourism.  We define sustainable tourism as tourism that aims to take all impacts, positive and negative, into account to get the maximum possible overall benefit from tourism, now and in the future.  It is not simply about being green.  Sustainable tourism encompasses not only environmental aspects but social and economic too.  If we neglect any of these when we are planning, developing and marketing tourism, we are unlikely to be steering towards a more sustainable tourism industry and ultimately we’ll be compromising the long-term growth of the industry.

Within our own remit, we have the opportunity to influence the economic, environmental and social sustainability of Scottish tourism.  But we also look to our tourism partners, from both the Sustainable Tourism Partnership and the wider tourism industry, to work with us to make Scottish tourism a more sustainable sector.  VisitScotland is working with our partners on the Sustainable Tourism Partnership to tackle sustainable tourism.  The first step has been to establish exactly where we stand in comparison to our competitors and this has been the focus of our work with STP on developing sustainable tourism indicators and benchmarking Scotland within Europe.  The next step is to develop a Sustainable Tourism action plan for Scotland stemming from the benchmarking exercise.  

Specifically, VisitScotland will continue to tackle sustainability by engaging with our visitors.  Attracting visitors, and enhancing their experience once here, are priorities for VisitScotland.  Sustainable tourism can add to the appeal of Scotland and improve the visitor experience.  Taking into account the views and interests of customers, partners and stakeholders involved, it is our role to deliver campaigns, projects and programmes that incorporate sustainability principles and minimise their impact on the environment while maximising their economic impact.  VisitScotland’s seasonal marketing initiatives like Autumn Gold, Spring into Summer and Winter White are good examples of how the organisation is tackling sustainability by engaging with our customers.