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Building a Sustainable Scotland: Sustainable Development and the Spending Review 2002
TOURISM, CULTURE AND SPORT
To enhance everyone's quality of life in Scotland through widening participation in sport and culture and building on a successful and sustainable tourism sector to create jobs and opportunity across Scotland
The Executive funds directly a number of bodies in the tourism, sports, arts and culture fields. There is room for improvement in implementing the Executive's sustainable development priorities of resource use, energy and transport. Action is now in hand to address this. For example,
sportscotland recently had themselves environmentally audited, and now recycle paper, meter water use and offer loans to staff to cycle or use public transport, while recycling and energy efficiency is promoted in Historic Scotland's offices. By 2003-2004, all of these bodies will be required to complete an environmental audit and to implement its findings.
The bodies should also actively promote sustainable development in their policies, plans and funded activities. There are existing examples of good practice. Historic Scotland through its grants programme supports the repair and re-use of old buildings, which is sustainable in terms of both resources and energy use, as well as being much cheaper than new build. Historic Scotland also promotes the use of traditional, local materials for the repair of buildings which helps support the local economies, reduces the environmental costs of transporting materials longer distances and substitutes materials such as timber for material such as PVC which are damaging to the environment both in their manufacture and disposal. Historic Scotland has published a paper
Passed to the Future on its work on sustainable development. Its monuments take part in the Green Tourism Business Scheme described below, with Skara Brae and Urquhart Castle Visitor Centre winning gold awards under the Scheme. It also promotes the use of public transport to its sites where possible, for example by providing contact numbers on its website for transport providers, by providing cycle racks at new visitor centres, by working with the coach firms and cruise liner operators and by promoting a cycle-way scheme around the Border abbeys.
Within the portfolio, tourism, as Scotland's biggest business sector contributing over 4 billion to the economy, represents the most significant opportunity to take sustainable development forward. It also presents a major policy challenge. VisitScotland's mission to make Scotland a must-visit destination and to increase the number of visitors to Scotland at first appears to conflict with sustainable development. Examples of potential conflicts include the need to use private transport to get to many popular areas, limits to the carrying capacity of some of these areas and some historic buildings, and the need to maintain the attractiveness of the landscape to visitors while catering for large scale wind farm developments. However, these apparent conflicts are less significant than they appear at first sight. The carbon dioxide emitted by visitors' coaches and cars is very small compared with the total carbon dioxide emitted by all of the cars on Scotland's roads; new ways of managing the visitor impacts on popular parts of the built environment are being put in place; and the wind farm sites needed for development by 2010 to meet the Executive's targets on renewable energy comprise only around 0.2% of the land area of Scotland.
The tourism sector stands to gain hugely in the long term from its success, because the environment, natural and built, is one of Scotland's greatest assets. Surveys show that 90% of our visitors rate the scenery as one of the reasons they come, 90% value fresh air as a factor, while 84% come for "peace and quiet". A similar percentage will visit at least one historic building during their visit. Good sustainable development, aimed at preserving the long-term quality of the environment for everyone in Scotland, is the best way to keep these visitors coming in the years ahead, and thus secure the future success of tourism.
Scotland already has a great deal to offer, but more can be done to capitalise on what is available. Against a background of changing visitor attitudes towards the environment, Scotland's very special landscape and wildlife present important opportunities including:
wildlife holidays
walking holidays
other outdoor activities (e.g. cycling)
environmentally-based tourism breaks
green tourism marketing (capitalising on the growing interest in the environment)
National Parks/National Nature Reserves/National Scenic Areas/Natura 2000 sites
Scotland's built heritage and archaeology.
VisitScotland is already developing new products to capitalise on the rapidly increasing demand in these areas. Its new marketing strategy is to focus on these thematic products, many of which, such as walking, cycling and wildlife breaks, are environmentally friendly.
These new products are not the only way to promote sustainable development across the tourism sector; indeed for a long time eco-tourism will represent no more than a relatively small niche market. This important sector of the economy can do more; it is the biggest employer in most rural areas and already plays a major part in sustaining rural communities. Increasing numbers of tourism businesses are signing up to VisitScotland's Green Tourism Business Scheme to differentiate their products as eco-friendly and mark their commitment to Scotland's environment. VisitScotland will continue to develop and promote the scheme, and consideration will be given to extending its reach as part of the Tourism Framework for Action. Sustainable tourism must and will be promoted across the various components of the tourism industry, and not just within eco-tourism niche markets. VisitScotland will also promote the Executive's Scottish Clean Energy Demonstration Scheme and Loan Action Scotland scheme across the sector; these give grants and interest-free loans to small businesses to help them invest in sustainable technologies such as energy-efficient heating systems or waste recycling.
While tourism is a very important component of the Tourism, Culture and Sport portfolio in sustainable development terms, there are others parts of the portfolio that can contribute. Nearly half of UK carbon dioxide emissions are attributable to buildings. The Executive's architecture policy will be used to promote sustainable development in the built environment; the location, quality, design and layout of buildings is of vital importance in reducing car use, and in minimising the usage of building materials, water and energy in their construction and use. The portfolio also contributes to awareness of, and education on, environmental issues and sustainability through exhibitions and through works of art with an environmental theme.
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