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Tourists prefer their beaches green
Results from two ‘demonstration beaches’ in Cyprus show actions to protect the environment also boost visitor satisfaction levels.
The successful pilots, part of the Travel Foundation’s five-year destination partnership with Cyprus, ran last year at Fig Tree Bay and Nissi Beach. The results of those pilots show that beach user satisfaction increased by 9% and 19% respectively following improvements such as promoting recycling and growing native plants. The partnership has now published a free handbook that draws on the lessons of the pilots, to encourage other municipalities and other countries to follow suit.
The Greening Cyprus Beaches handbook (in English and Greek) provides practical tips, checklists, case studies and other information around ten categories including sand and water quality, vegetation and planting, ‘green’ signage and facilities, locally sourced food and drink, and public information and education.
Some of the tried and tested ideas to protect natural beach assets include:
- providing a safe drinking water fountain to reduce plastic bottle waste,
- installing bike racks to encourage cycling, and
- involving local residents, school children, businesses and holiday makers in beach litter clean-ups.
Julie Middleton, Industry Programmes Manager for the Travel Foundation and project manager for the Cyprus destination partnership, said:
"This project has demonstrated what a best practice "green beach" can look like and, as with many initiatives in sustainable or green tourism, it shows the outcome is a win:win for all concerned. Protecting our beaches isn’t just the right thing to do from an environmental perspective – communities and businesses benefit too. "
For more information about the results of the pilot, or to download the free handbook, visit http://csti-cyprus.org or contact Julie Middleton from the Travel Foundation.
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