Scottish Tourism Innovation GroupThe Tourism Innovation Group (TiG) is made up of public and private sector representatives from the Scottish tourism industry. TiG is administered by the Scottish Tourism Forum (STF) which provides the link between the private sector and national government tourism policy. TiG's role is to stimulate innovative strategies for Scottish tourism development and to feed these into public and private sector strategy. ProblemTourism depends on transportation and transportation relies on oil. Unlike other energies, for example electricity, transportation cannot find easy substitutes for oil products. Transportation and therefore tourism is highly oil dependent.
Changes in the supply and demand structure - and thus price - of oil, and rapidly changing consumer attitudes about climate change combine with legislation and the inevitability of carbon trading as a potential business cost to demand a tourism strategy that is ecologically savvy. Project
Footprint was commissioned by TiG to lead a process to introduce sustainability to the national tourism agenda through promoting it as a tool for innovation. This was done through a series of workshops and meetings which asked the question, “Is sustainability Scottish Tourism's competitive edge?” BenefitsAs a result of Footprint's involvement the STF initiated a programme to offset the ecological impacts of tourism in Scotland through channeling visitor and operator contributions into projects that promote sustainable tourism practices in Scotland. The aim of this programme is to create the world's first ecologically benign tourism product. The project has recently evolved into government strategy through VisitScotland, the national tourism marketing agency, who have just commissioned a project on making Scotland Europe's most sustainable tourism destination - as a primary brand proposition.
Project leaderDave Key, Director.
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