We recently sent an email survey to our database on the subject of sustainable tourism, we covered everything from wind farms to composting. We were overwhelmed with the response with over 250 surveys returned, it gave us some really strong opinions and views which we’ll be using to help shape our sustainable tourism strategy.
The most satisfying results were around our recycling policy, with well over 90% people happy to support our moves in this area, with a small caveat that we must make it straightforward for people to do we have a huge thumbs up for sorting rubbish, separating vegetable waste and reducing the levels of waste going to landfill. The vast majority of people [95%] would also buy local farm produce as long as it was competitively priced and convenient. We’ve been running a scheme with our local grocery store for some time now and we’re looking to extend that to include vegetable boxes as well as growing some of our own produce on site.
There was also a marked support for the introduction of energy saving schemes like reducing water usage and turning off electrical appliances. We’ll be making our guests more aware of these issues when they’re on site, without compromising the quality of the experience we offer.
We were interested to get views on the bigger environmental issues that affect all of us. It was fascinating to learn that 70% people aren’t sure if wind power is actually effective. The majority of people don’t have a problem with wind farms, they recognise that they’re part of a bigger solution and they look spectacular especially when compared to electricity pylons. However when it comes to having them in your own neighbourhood there is some resistance, it would seem that if we were given the facts about how effective they are it might help to get them introduced. Most of our respondents thought there were less than 50 wind turbines in Cornwall, in fact there are around 100. This fact probably shows that people do not mind seeing them, if they did they would probably exaggerate the number they thought there were.
On car usage we knew that people would be more divided and only 30% thought that offsetting the carbon used in their journey was a good idea. As every one of our guests arrives in a car we could not really expect a different result. We’re striving to help guests once they are on site to not use their cars every day. We provide bikes for guest use, we’re only a few minutes from the start of the Camel Trail, the unique 20 mile cycle route from Bodmin Moor to Padstow. We have 100 acres of land with river frontage, pasture and beautiful woodland for guests to enjoy walking in, with or without dogs so it’s possible to have restful days on site. We’re also looking to extend the onsite facilities in line with this strategy.
Thanks for all your support and if you submitted a survey thank you.
