Sus­tain­able Tour­ism Action Plan

Annu­al Update ²⁰²³⁄₂₄ — Draft for CTP discussion

In deliv­er­ing the actions below, all of which will help to deliv­er the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan, there are two over­arch­ing priorities:

1. Busi­nesses, vis­it­ors and wider stake­hold­ers should be engaged in the jour­ney to Net Zero and nature recovery.
2. Com­munit­ies and loc­al res­id­ents should be involved in tour­ism decision-mak­ing where it affects them.

NATURE

Out­come: A car­bon neg­at­ive and biod­iversity rich Nation­al Park with bet­ter func­tion­ing, bet­ter con­nec­ted and more resi­li­ent ecosystems.

Research shows that the major­ity of our vis­it­ors are attrac­ted by the land­scapes and wild­life that make this such a spe­cial place. We want to deep­en that con­nec­tion with the nat­ur­al envir­on­ment, present­ing vis­it­ors with oppor­tun­it­ies to make a pos­it­ive con­tri­bu­tion through vis­it­or giv­ing, volun­teer­ing and respons­ible beha­viour choices.

Deliv­er­ing against Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan object­ives: • A1 – Net zero • A13 – Spe­cies recov­ery Deliv­er­ing against Scot­land Out­look 2030: • Des­tin­a­tion net zero

ACTIONS	Lead Part­ners
1. Vis­it­or invest­ment Encour­age vis­it­or invest­ment in the Nation­al Park through vis­it­or-giv­ing, car­bon off­set schemes and oth­er incent­ives, con­nect­ing vis­it­ors with the place through fin­an­cial and emo­tion­al buy-in.	Cairngorms Trust, CNPA, CBP
The Cairngorms Trust con­tin­ues to receive vol­un­tary dona­tions from the pub­lic to sup­port pro­jects with­in the Nation­al Park. For the peri­od April-Decem­ber 2023 these dona­tions totalled over £8k, includ­ing £3,382 donated through busi­nesses work­ing with the Trust.
2. Cli­mate Action Plan	CBP
Devel­op and imple­ment a busi­ness – led Cli­mate Action Plan that engages busi­nesses in oppor­tun­it­ies to lower their car­bon footprint.
CBP have developed a Cli­mate Action Plan which has been shared with busi­nesses. Over 79% of object­ives have been achieved and a revised plan will be cre­ated for future focus. An event is planned in part­ner­ship with Zero Waste Scot­land (part fun­ded by CNPA) around redu­cing food waste, planned for 12th March at Mac­Don­ald Aviemore Resort. CNPA and CBP are also in dis­cus­sions with Green Tour­ism Ltd. around options for bespoke Nation­al Park accred­it­a­tion schemes.
3. Tech­no­lo­gic­al solu­tions Invest­ig­ate tech­no­lo­gic­al solu­tions to engage vis­it­ors and nudge them towards respons­ible choices in a way that enhances their exper­i­ence of the destination.	CNPA, Vis­itScot­land
CNPA have been work­ing with part­ners includ­ing Loch Lomond and the Trossachs Nation­al Park Author­ity and Vis­itScot­land to scope out the devel­op­ment of a vis­it­or wel­come app for Scotland’s nation­al parks. This includes com­mis­sion­ing a research pro­ject to bench­mark com­par­at­or apps across Scot­land, the UK and the Europe, and asked poten­tial audi­ence mem­bers what they would expect from such a product. Sub­ject to sourcing appro­pri­ate budget, we anti­cip­ate an app being developed in 2025 / early 2026, once redevel­op­ment pro­jects for the Cairngorms and Loch Lomond web­sites have been completed.
4. Pre-arrival vis­it­or inform­a­tion Devel­op a pro­gramme that sup­ports busi­ness engage­ment with cus­tom­ers in advance of their vis­it, includ­ing inform­a­tion about biod­iversity and respons­ible enjoyment.	CBP, CNPA
The ​“Love Nature, Love Cairngorms Nation­al Park’ respons­ible enjoy­ment pro­ject was launched to CBP mem­bers in Octo­ber 2023, & since then an ongo­ing pro­gramme of engage­ment with mem­bers has sought to sup­port their under­stand­ing of, engage­ment with, & use of the pro­ject assets.
Four sea­son­al pre-arrival email tem­plates have also been developed & are ready for roll-out to mem­bers, designed to deliv­er a con­sist­ent des­tin­a­tion-wide wel­come, includ­ing mes­sages about research­ing & book­ing ahead, pro­mot­ing events, enga­ging with des­tin­a­tion social media, & sign-up to ongo­ing con­sumer comms.
This work has been sup­por­ted through Park Author­ity-led chan­nels (web and social media) as well as via Vis­it­Cairngorms and indi­vidu­al busi­ness accounts.
5. Redu­cing spe­cies dis­turb­ance. Devel­op and imple­ment mech­an­isms to reduce dis­turb­ance on key spe­cies and recre­ation­al impacts on high ground.	CNPA, NatureScot, Ranger Ser­vices, CBP
The Cairngorms Caper­cail­lie Pro­ject is near­ing com­ple­tion, hav­ing worked with key com­munit­ies includ­ing vis­it­ors, busi­nesses, dog walk­ers and moun­tain bikers to devel­op action plans that pro­tect caper­cail­lie and oth­er vul­ner­able species.
CBP’s cyc­ling map­ping pro­ject is expand­ing to offer new routes in Blair Atholl, Tomin­toul & Glen­liv­et and Grant­own-on-Spey. The aim is to encour­age riders to carry on through sens­it­ive areas (routes also avoid­ing area alto­geth­er) without rais­ing aware­ness of nature sens­it­iv­ity which could encour­age disturbance.

PEOPLE

Out­come: A well­being eco­nomy that works for all the people of the Cairngorms. Tour­ism forms a major sec­tor of the loc­al eco­nomy but there are oppor­tun­it­ies to improve the value it adds to the lives of loc­al res­id­ents and com­munit­ies, devel­op­ing and pro­mot­ing hos­pit­al­ity as a career and sup­port­ing com­munit­ies to bene­fit from the vis­it­or economy.

Deliv­er­ing against Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan object­ives: • B2 – Well­being eco­nomy • B4 – Skills and train­ing • B5 – Com­munity assets and land • B8 – Gael­ic lan­guage and cul­ture • B10 A Park for all Deliv­er­ing against Scot­land Out­look 2030: • Our pas­sion­ate people • Our diverse businesses

ACTIONS	Part­ners Lead first
1. Com­munity-led tour­ism Sup­port, encour­age and pro­mote com­munity-led tour­ism enter­prises and devel­op a com­munity tour­ism net­work for the Nation­al Park.	Vol­un­tary Action Badenoch and Strath­spey, Scotland’s Com­munity Tour­ism Net­work, Cairngorms Busi­ness Partnership
CNPA provided sup­port to SCOTO for their first annu­al con­fer­ence which was held at Duke of Gor­don hotel, Kin­gussie in March 2023.
2. Res­id­ent research Mon­it­or res­id­ents’ atti­tudes to tour­ism in their com­munity through reg­u­lar sur­veys and inform­al open meetings.	Park Author­ity
Along­side the reg­u­lar vis­it­or sur­vey, CNPA have con­trac­ted for the first time a reg­u­lar res­id­ent sur­vey which will cap­ture con­sist­ent data through a bien­ni­al online sur­vey to cap­ture the view of people liv­ing and work­ing with the Nation­al Park. The first wave of research is likely to take place in late sum­mer 2024.
CNPA are also devel­op­ing a suite of face to face drop-in events to cov­er a range of top­ics, likely in Brae­mar, Kin­gussie or New­ton­more, and Grant­own dur­ing 2024. Atti­tudes to tour­ism with­in the com­munity will form part of this engagement.
3. Cul­tur­al her­it­age Strengthen cul­tur­al events through vis­it­or engage­ment with Gael­ic and oth­er lan­guages, music, storytelling and built heritage.	Park Author­ity, Cairngorms Busi­ness Partnership
CNPA has com­mis­sioned pre­par­at­ory work to explore the poten­tial for estab­lish­ing a Cul­tur­al Her­it­age Net­work for the Cairngorms Nation­al Park. The con­tract was awar­ded to SCOTO and final report is due by 31 March 2024.
CBP have been sup­port­ing Badenoch Her­it­age activ­ity around the Badenoch Story­lands pro­ject, attend­ing Badenoch Her­it­age Fest­iv­al and giv­ing recom­mend­a­tions to engage more vis­it­ors and loc­als in pro­gramme pro­mo­tion and devel­op­ment. A clear­er strategy of what the fest­iv­al wants to achieve would be of benefit.
4. Fair work and well­being Identi­fy meas­ures and sup­port needed to encour­age fair work prac­tices and a well­being eco­nomy in the tour­ism industry.	Park Author­ity, Cairngorms Busi­ness Partnership
A Well­being Eco­nomy Action Plan is in devel­op­ment and will be dis­cussed by the CNPA board in Feb­ru­ary 2024. Fair work first and liv­ing wage con­di­tions are now a require­ment with­in all con­tracts, grants and work issued by CNPA.
Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship hos­ted a guest ques­tion from CNPA in the latest Busi­ness Baro­met­er (Q1) sur­vey to help estab­lish busi­ness atti­tudes to the Real Liv­ing Wage. There will be ongo­ing devel­op­ment of this work in part­ner­ship with CBP for tour­ism sector.
5. Employ­ment, train­ing and skills Pro­mote the Cairngorms as an excep­tion­al des­tin­a­tion to work in the hos­pit­al­ity industry and devel­op a train­ing ini­ti­at­ive to strengthen links between loc­al schools / fur­ther and high­er edu­ca­tion organ­isa­tions and the hos­pit­al­ity sector.	Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship, High­lands and Islands Enter­prise / Scot­tish Enter­prise, Skills Devel­op­ment Scotland
CBP have sup­por­ted Bal­later Busi­ness Asso­ci­ation in a pro­ject with Aboyne Academy along­side SDS and CBP to pro­mote and encour­age hos­pit­al­ity train­ing and skills as career choices. They are also in dis­cus­sion with Kin­gussie High School and Grant­own Gram­mar School about hos­pit­al­ity skills.
6. Busi­ness engage­ment Review and refresh the ​‘Make it Yours’ busi­ness engage­ment pro­gramme to ensure it meets the needs of our part­ners and informs and inspires front­line staff.	Park Author­ity, Cairngorms Busi­ness Partnership
Work has focussed over the last year on refresh­ing the Nation­al Park brand and enga­ging busi­nesses in the revised brand charter. The Make it Yours online video con­tin­ues to be pro­moted as an asset for train­ing front-line staff, and options for re- instat­ing face-to-face train­ing events are being assessed for Spring 2024.
7. Equal­it­ies, diversity and inclu­sion Encour­age a more diverse range of vis­it­ors to the Cairngorms by address­ing bar­ri­ers iden­ti­fied by under­rep­res­en­ted groups and people from a wide range of socio-eco­nom­ic back­grounds, and sup­port train­ing for front­line hos­pit­al­ity staff to offer a warm wel­come to vis­it­ors of all backgrounds.	Park Author­ity
Along­side the expan­sion of a ded­ic­ated Equal­it­ies Advis­ory Pan­el – which advises the Park Author­ity on a range of equal­it­ies issues – CNPA has developed part­ner­ships with a range of organ­isa­tions to take for­ward work in this area. These include Black Pro­fes­sion­als Scot­land, Able2Adventure and LGBT Youth Scot­land, the lat­ter of which runs a ​‘charter’ scheme for organ­isa­tions seek­ing to be bet­ter allies to the LGB­TQ+ com­munity. 18 months after we first signed up – and hav­ing reviewed everything from our comms approach to our recruit­ment prac­tices and staff train­ing – we recently sub­mit­ted evid­ence to secure our bronze award. Else­where, inclu­sion has been woven into the fab­ric of CNPA’s web­site redevel­op­ment pro­ject, includ­ing an aspir­a­tion to achieve a min­im­um AA (and up to AAA) stand­ard in terms of web­site access­ib­il­ity. We have also com­mis­sioned a range of pho­to­graphy and video fea­tur­ing under- rep­res­en­ted audi­ences, which is used across the full suite of Nation­al Park chan­nels. to offer a warm wel­come to vis­it­ors of all backgrounds.
8. Loc­al vis­it­or levy	Loc­al author­it­ies, Park Authority
Engage with stake­hold­ers to ensure that Scot­tish Government’s pro­pos­als for a loc­al vis­it­or levy meet the needs of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park.
The Vis­it­or Levy bill con­tin­ues to move through par­lia­ment. CNPA were rep­res­en­ted at Scot­tish Par­lia­ment­ary Com­mit­tee tour­ism levy work­shop in Aviemore in Oct 2023 and have sub­mit­ted a con­sulta­tion response that high­lighted 5 key points. 1. The need for any scheme intro­duced by the five part­ner loc­al author­it­ies to recog­nise the tour­ism object­ives with­in the Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan
2. Ensur­ing that the net pro­ceeds of any scheme are not used solely to provide ser­vices that are delivered by loc­al authorities
3. The need for loc­al con­sulta­tion on the design of a vis­it­or levy scheme
4. Sup­port for the duty to keep a sep­ar­ate account for scheme
5. Com­ment on the types of accom­mod­a­tion covered by a levy

PLACE

Out­come: A place that people want to live in, work in and vis­it that works for all. Vis­it­ors con­trib­ute not just eco­nom­ic­ally but socially to life in the Nation­al Park, sup­port­ing invest­ment in infra­struc­ture, busi­nesses and events to help cre­ate thriv­ing com­munit­ies. We want to spread these bene­fits by devel­op­ing and pro­mot­ing assets in com­munit­ies with addi­tion­al vis­it­or capa­city, and encour­aging vis­its at tra­di­tion­ally quieter times of year.

Deliv­er­ing against Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan object­ives: • C1 – Access to hous­ing • C5 – Vis­it­ors to the Nation­al Park • C6 – A sus­tain­able des­tin­a­tion • C8 – Access­ible path and cycle net­work • C9 – High-qual­ity vis­it­or exper­i­ence Deliv­er­ing against Scot­land Out­look 2030: • Our thriv­ing places • Our mem­or­able experiences

ACTIONS	Part­ners Lead first
1. Tour­ism infra­struc­ture Pro­duce a Stra­tegic Tour­ism Infra­struc­ture Plan that defines the pri­or­it­ies for invest­ment in tour­ism infra­struc­ture for the next five years and seek addi­tion­al fund­ing for delivery.	Park Author­ity, VisitScotland
An ini­tial ver­sion of the Stra­tegic Tour­ism Infra­struc­ture Plan was approved by CNPA Board in Novem­ber 2022. A revised plan is being pro­duced for Spring 2024 to incor­por­ate appro­pri­ate Cairngorms 2030 projects.
2. Vis­it­or accom­mod­a­tion Mon­it­or the imple­ment­a­tion of the new short-term let licens­ing arrange­ments and the devel­op­ment of meas­ures such as the short-term let con­trol areas, and ensure that we main­tain an appro­pri­ate range of accom­mod­a­tion for visitors.	Park Author­ity, loc­al authorities
Reg­u­lar updates are received from loc­al author­ity part­ners about pro­gress on pro­cessing short-term let licens­ing applic­a­tions. In late Janu­ary the CNPA plan­ning com­mit­tee agreed to note their sup­port for the High­land Council’s non-stat­utory short- term let con­trol area plan­ning policy. Pub­lic inform­a­tion meet­ings about the con­trol zone are planned for later in Feb­ru­ary 2024.
3. Tour­ism assets Pro­mote and invest in tour­ism assets pro­duced by pre­vi­ous place-based ini­ti­at­ives – includ­ing Badenoch: The Story­lands, SnowRoads Scen­ic Route, Tomin­toul and Glen­liv­et Dark Sky Park, Cat­er­an Eco-museum, the Spey­side Way and Deeside Way.	Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship, Park Author­ity, VisitScotland
CBP con­tin­ue to lead on pro­mo­tion and devel­op­ment of tour­ism assets, includ­ing: Badenoch the Story­lands: Work has included an influ­en­cer vis­it in Octo­ber 2023, new image and video con­tent cap­tured for pro­mo­tion and loc­al busi­ness use, busi­ness work­shops in Dec 2023 on using the brand to con­nect with vis­it­ors and PR includ­ing afront page fea­ture in The Times Alba.
Snow Roads: A digit­al grant has been secured to bring SnowRoads brand under VC​.com site, redu­cing oper­at­ing costs and improv­ing the vis­it­or exper­i­ence. PR oppor­tun­it­ies are also being explored.
Tomin­toul & Glen­liv­et Dark Sky Park – work has focused on train­ing for busi­nesses on Dark Sky product devel­op­ment, and ini­tial feed­back on book­ings for these exper­i­ences have been positive.
Spey­side Way: There have been ini­tial con­ver­sa­tions with Badenoch Con­nec­tions around lug­gage trans­fers along route, work on con­tent cre­ation to pro­mote the trail to audi­ences, and explor­a­tion of PR oppor­tun­it­ies and influ­en­cer col­lab­or­a­tion in part­ner­ship with Vis­it Moray Speyside.
4. Redu­cing sea­son­al­ity Sup­port devel­op­ment of new products and events to encour­age vis­its at quieter times of year, par­tic­u­larly through the winter months. Com­mis­sion des­tin­a­tion mar­ket­ing cam­paigns to foster growth at tra­di­tion­ally quieter times of year and to encour­age longer stays, with increased value to the loc­al economy.	Park Author­ity and Cairngorms Busi­ness Partnership
Winter devel­op­ment ses­sions were delivered by CBP in Grant­own, Bal­later and Aviemore and presen­ted at CBP con­fer­ence in Novem­ber 2023, focus­ing on the winter cam­paign, Where Winter Comes to Life and encour­aging appro­pri­ate product devel­op­ment to sup­port the cam­paign, includ­ing an offer to work with busi­nesses on a one-to-one basis. The winter cam­paign is ongo­ing until March 2024, includ­ing a recently launched hero film.
An event plan­ners guide is a new resource which was developed with busi­nesses and landown­ers to encour­age event organ­isers to max­im­ise the bene­fit of events to loc­al economy.
5. Busi­ness sup­port Devel­op oppor­tun­it­ies for busi­nesses to use their loc­a­tion in a Nation­al Park to build sus­tain­able growth through brand­ing, product devel­op­ment and tar­geted marketing.	Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship, Park Authority
Fol­low­ing the refresh of the Cairngorms Nation­al Park brand CNPA & CBP organ­ised a series of four work­shops (three in per­son and one online) to dis­cuss with busi­nesses what mater­i­als & resources would be most rel­ev­ant to their busi­ness. This has informed the redevel­op­ment of our over­all brand charter scheme, with a new web portal and a series of new resources cre­ated / in devel­op­ment, from an image lib­rary to itin­er­ar­ies, mer­chand­ise and train­ing oppor­tun­it­ies. These will be pro­gressed fur­ther over the next 12 months.
6. Part­ner­ship work­ing Build on the part­ner­ship struc­tures and policies developed in response to the Cov­id-19 lock­downs as a mod­el for resi­li­ence against future uncertainty.	Park Author­ity
The Man­aging for Vis­it­ors group con­tin­ues to meet fort­nightly or monthly as required to Plan for, and dis­cuss, vis­it­or issues and communications.