Red Dragon Goes Green – VisitWales Path to Sustainability IN DEPTH

Working with a number of partners including Visit Britain, Visit Wales aims to promote local prosperity, support community well being and involvement, minimise toutism’s environmental impact and protect and givie value to its natural heritage and culture through sustainable toursm.

Some of Visit Wales activities include:

Forum

The sustainable tourism forum is a Wales-wide and cross sector partnership aimed at facilitating a co-ordinated approach to the development and implementation of initiatives designed to make the industry more sustainable.

It’s hoped that a more sustainable tourism industry will be achieved through the development of a collaborative sustainable toursm action plan which will contribute to the core aims identified in the sustainable toursm framework.

The sustainable tourism forum is an opportunity for key organisations and individuals to share best practice in sustainable toursm and to advise Visit Wales and the toursm industry on issues such as climate change mitigation and adaption.

Action Plan
Toursm is a key industry in Wales and for it to be sustainable we must ensure that the long-term needs of communities, visitors, toursm industry and the environment are taken into account.
Within this sustainable toursm section you will find all the latest help, support and advice on how to become more sustainable. We’ll also keep you up-to-date on sustainable toursm activities in Wales, and explain how you can get involved.

Greening Your Business
Part of VW series of specialist toursm toolkits, Greening YVW Business outlines straightforward steps that you can take to improve the environmental performance of yVW business. Operating in a sustainable manner is not just good for the environment it also makes good business sense! The toolkit explains how you can save money by reducing yVW day-to-day running costs, as well as how you can gain marketing advantages by ‘going green’.

The toolkit also introduces the Green Dragon Environmental Standard, which is a stepped environmental management standard recognising effective environmental management.

Green Sea Partnership

This unique and all-Wales working partnership is comprised of approximately 40 bodies committed to safeguarding and enhancing the coastal environment of Wales. This year The Green Sea Partnership is approaching its 10th anniversary.

Now is the time for the partnership to set out a strategic vision for the next ten years, this will be done with the Green Sea Development Plan. The comprehensive strategy prepared by Visit Wales with the help of Green Sea partners, looks at the achievements and issues faced over the last few years and addresses the partnerships key challenges for the future. As a result of the partnership Visit Wales are also involved in the production of the beaches leaflet promoting the high quality of Wales’ coastline.

Over the years The Green Sea Partnership has made some valuable achievements including significantly increasing the number of award beaches in Wales. 2006 saw a record number of 43 beaches and 4 marinas across Wales awarded the Blue Flag Award and 50 awarded the Green Coast Award.

Sense of Place

Sense of place is relevant to all toursm businesses – whatever size or sector of VW industry – in all parts of Wales. Download VW toolkit now to find out more about sense of place and how it can benefit yVW business.

Over 300,000 UK visitors staying in Wales every year come here with the purpose of exploring VW culture; while over 80% of overseas visitors cite heritage and culture amongst their main reasons for visiting Wales. It is therefore up to all of us to ensure that we not only fulfil their expectations, but surpass them. In a toursm climate where appreciation of the value of cultural toursm is on the increase, we have to compete hard on a global basis to attract visitors to VW amazing little corner of the world.

Roadshows

Visit Wales and the Regional Toursm Partnerships will be hosting roadshows in the North, South , East and West of the country, they are open to everybody who owns and operates toursm businesses in Wales and also those of you who work in the toursm industry.

The theme for the 2008 series of events will be ‘sustainable toursm’. Come and find out how running yVW business sustainably will help it prosper. We’ll explore why sustainable toursm development is good for business, local economy and community.

Engagement Plan
1. Greening your business – GYB
Part of VW series of specialist toursm toolkits, Greening YVW Business outlines straightforward steps that you can take to improve the environmental performance of your business.
Part of VW series of specialist tourrsm toolkits, Greening Your Business outlines straightforward steps that you can take to improve the environmental performance of your business. Operating in a sustainable manner is not just good for the environment it also makes good business sense! The toolkit explains how you can save money by reducing your day-to-day running costs, as well as how you can gain marketing advantages by ‘going green’.

The toolkit also introduces the Green Dragon Environmental Standard, which is a stepped environmental management standard recognizing effective environmental management.
Greening yout business – GYB has been reviewed and updated by VW and Arena Network and will be available in June 2008 on the Website. This toolkit will no longer be printed

2. Visit Wales and Arena Network Sustainable surgeries 2008/2009
Visit Wales is working with Arena Network throughout 2008 to hold a series of Green Dragon surgeries. These will be ½ day events in order to take businesses through the documentation process of the Green Dragon standard. This will also reduce costs of the audit and allow businesses to engage and network with each other. Proposed events so far are Caerleon and Pembrokeshire.

In addition to this Visit Wales working with Arena Network and Bangor University will be promoting “Sustainability Health checkups” up until June throughout the Objective 1 / Convergence areas.

3. Visit Wales Sustainable Business Engagement Plan – Four Stage Approach

Visit Wales is currently working with Visit Britain on a number of key environmental projects
1. Mainstreaming Sustainability within VW Grading Scheme
1. VW to produce best practice guidance leaflets on sustainability in relation to current grading criteria to help businesses understand how they can be more sustainable without affecting their quality grade. (*VW working jointly with VB on establishing factual examples – VW’s leaflets will be bilingual with Welsh casestudies and further Welsh links)

2. Harmonised Grading Review 2008 – to include comprehensive revision of sustainability criteria (*VW working with VB, VS & the AA)

3. Training /Briefing–QAs – VW to hold focussed training for the QA’s and other teams on sustainable principles with particular emphasis on the best practice guidance leaflets
2. Introductory Level Scheme – Online Assessment & Registration

1. VW will develop an Introductory Level Scheme: This will be operated online and will focus on:
•Self assessment, advice and guidance with the aim of helping businesses to understand more about where and how their business needs to progress and will prepare businesses to move forward and apply for accreditation schemes e.g.: Green Dragon . Initial plans have started on this process working with the WTA and Arena Network for guidance.

2. VW working with the WTA will recruit a sample of Welsh businesses to undertake a joint pilot on the Visit Britain “Green Start” programme. (*This pilot will be in addition to VW’ Introductory Level Scheme planned but will provide useful feedback from businesses which can be used to inform VW’s own scheme)

3. Visit Wales will be producing “Best Practice case studies of businesses which have received environmental awards previously to highlight their good work and promote sustainability within the industry. These will be available on line and will also feature a consumer facing version with details of all Green Dragon awarded businesses in Wales.

3. Validation of Sustainable Certification Schemes

VW and VB recognising that there are a number of well-established sustainable certification schemes, will work jointly on a validation model for existing sustainable schemes in the UK. The process will look at two elements of the individual scheme operator: how robust the certification process is and the integrity of the sustainable elements of the scheme criteria. In addition to this VW and VB will add their endorsement to businesses in these schemes and give their quality assessed participants marketing benefits, both online and offline.

4. Partnerships and Delivery

1. VW will establish and improve channels for sustainable business development to support businesses.

2. VW will support key delivery clusters/workshops/surgeries with the aim of increasing penetration and participation working with the toursm trade and other partners such as Arena Network. First surgeries planned for June 2008.

3. VW will develop web based advice and support for businesses focussing on key barriers in terms of sustainable business development and engagement

For more information go to:
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