Primrose Valley is just one of the hotel’s featured on the St Ives tourist board’s new iPhone app. It features nine places to stay, lots of bars and restaurants, things to do and sites of interest, and lots of useful contact details for trains, taxis, boat hire and more – all pinpointed on the an interactive map.

Though the information is not exhaustive – there are lots more restaurants to choose from in St Ives – it is a very handy guide. The app costs £1.19

Read the full piece here

[this blog first appeared on greentraveller ]

Visitors to Cumbria this summer can take part in cycling activities free of charge, thanks to a new Passport 2 Pedalling scheme.

Cumbria Tourism has teamed up with CycleActive, a company in Penrith, to offer training courses and guided bike rides across the Lake District from July to October.

‘Beach biking‘ sessions are taking place on the sand at Allonby, Barrow and St Bees in August with races and challenges: bikes, helmets, limbo bars and see-saws are provided.

Guided cycling rides are taking place on selected dates in July and August, with routes ranging from 9 to 20 miles, and locations including Ullswater, Ennerdale, Coniston and Windermere. Cyclists can take their own bike or hire one free of charge.

Families can learn mountain biking skills and BMX tricks in free 30-minute sessions at events such as Barrow Sports Day and the Cumberland Show, with all bikes provided. A Kids Mountain Biking Academy is also taking place in Whinlatter Forest Park.

All cyclists taking part in Passport 2 Pedalling will receive a goodie bag with cycling routes for families and beginners.

Cumbria Tourism’s Julie Darroch says getting more visitors to use alternative transport to cars is a key priority. “Not only are activities like cycling and walking much better for the environment and for people’s health and wellbeing, they are also one of the best ways to fully appreciate the scenic attractions that we have here, and to reach places and viewpoints that the car simply can not.,” she explains.

At the moment, 84% of Cumbria’s 15.3 million annual visitors arrive by and get around by car but the tourist board is trying to encourage more sustainable transport.

“There are a number of accommodation providers in the area that offer discounts to guests that arrive by public transport or that ‘hang up their car keys’ for the duration of their stay,” says Julie. “And many more have bikes on site that guests can hire, or can arrange for bikes to be delivered to the accommodation in time for their arrival.”

Another initiative in place in the Lake District National Park is the Give The Driver a Break scheme that encourages use of the bus.

Cumbria Tourism is looking to further develop its cycling routes, particularly for families and mountain bikers. Passport 2 Pedalling is part of Cumbria’s bid to become known as the UK’s best adventure holiday destination.

See the GoLakes website for the dates and locations of the activities, and to pre-book.

The National Forest has launched a new visitors’ website with a focus on ‘going green’.

The site emphasises eco-friendly attractions and places to stay within the forest, and encourages visitors to use public transport and explore by bike or on foot rather than driving.

The National Forest covers an area of 200 square miles in Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Staffordshire, and 7.7 million trees have already been planted since the project began in 1991.

Low-impact accommodation within the forest includes the YHA National Forest, which has bio-fuel boilers and solar panels and collects rainwater to flush the loos. At Roliston Forestry Centre there are six sustainable-timber lodges, and visitors can camp at the Conkers Camping and Caravanning Club. The website also highlights hotels and guesthouses which have achieved a Green Tourism Business Scheme award.

Most of the National Forest’s visitors are day-trippers but the number of people staying overnight is rising, up from 4% in 2001 to 10% in 2007. “It’s an area that we’re really targeting because overnight stays bring more economic benefit to the destination and they have a smaller impact on the environment than the same increase in day visitors,” explains Penny Wilkinson of the National Forest Company. “Our job is to try to get them to use sustainable transport methods when they are here.”

Most visitors currently come by car, but Penny says they hope this will change: “We actively promote cycle hire and we’re developing more trails and facilities for cycling. We’ve supported several new off-road routes, for example, including over 20km of new and improved trails.”

There is a special family cycling route, the Conkers Circuit, and a further 14km of family-friendly off-road trails will be developed soon. Links to routes 6, 54 and 63 of the National Cycle Network are also to be promoted.

A ‘hop on, hop off’ open-top bus in the summer months helps people get around, and the forest hopes to increase groups visiting by coach as opposed to individuals coming by car.

The National Forest only has one railway station, Burton upon Trent, within it but visitors will be encouraged to use stations in towns like Loughborough, Tamworth, and Lichfield as entry points. Penny adds that expanding canal access could provide more ‘green access’ in the future.

The ‘going green’ section of the new website also encourages the purchase of local produce, with a 12-page guide from the National Forest Food Network, and highlights forest activities like planting trees, woodland crafts and llama trekking.

New features elsewhere on the site include downloadable maps for short, medium and long walks; an expanded cycling section with maps; and more comprehensive information on the other attractions and activities available in the forest.

• If you’re interested in cycling, see greentraveller’s selection of cycling holidays in England

Survey results released this week as part of National Ferry Fortnight (organised by the Passenger Shipping Association) reveal why passengers choose to travel by ferry instead of flying.

The convenience of taking their own car came out top, with 55% saying this was an important factor. The lack of luggage restrictions (i.e. the convenience of piling your car high with buckets and spades) was very important for 44% of passengers. I presume the Passenger Shipping Association didn’t have any green travellers onboard that day, as carbon footprint wasn’t mentioned at all!

This got me thinking about the convenience of travelling by ferry as a foot passenger and – since I’ve just visited Jersey and Guernsey – travelling from Poole to the Channel Islands in particular.

Car-free on the Channel Islands

It’s fairly easy to go car-free once you’ve reached the Channel Islands. The ferry terminals on both islands are a short walk from the town centre so you can easily hop onto a bus; there are comprehensive bus routes and timetables online for both Jersey and Guernsey. There are also bike hire centres just a few minutes walk from the ferry terminals on both islands, like Zebra Hire on the Esplanade in St Helier, Jersey.

My experience onboard both Condor Vitesse and Condor Express was excellent: both clean and fresh, with a small duty free shop, a kids’ room with TV, and a cafeteria. There were all the usual comforts of ferry travel over air travel, but travelling to and between the Channel Isles was a particular treat in terms of scenery – as we came into Guernsey’s St Peter Port at 7pm it was like a sunset island cruise.

The terminal on Jersey was impressive, with a good little restaurant, outdoor seating, and a souvenir shop/newsagent before you pass through security. Guernsey was less developed -  the shutters of the snack kiosk remained resolutely down the whole time we were waiting so we couldn’t even buy a drink. Still, playing pool while we waited was a novelty.

The most frustrating part of the journey as a foot passenger, however, was not on the islands but in Poole on the mainland. The transfer from Poole train station to Poole ferry terminal was a 20-25 minute walk which was no fun with heavy luggage and a short time-frame. We ended up having to jump in a taxi across town instead, costing an extra £7 and adding to the rush-hour traffic across the city.

Poole can’t help the fact that its station and ferry terminal are not closer together, but in Southampton they get around the problem by providing a free shuttle bus from Southampton Central train station to Red Funnel’s Town Quay ferry terminal.

I’d like to see the authorities in Poole show a similar commitment to helping people reach the Channel Islands car free.

Ferry travel may well be the convenient choice for those travelling by car – but how about making it easier for those of us who want to go on foot?

My feature for Australia and New Zealand magazine on eco-volunteering in the Antipodes is in stores now….

Thanks to Biosphere Expeditions, Conservation Volunteers, Reef Check Australia and everyone else who helped out!

Click here to read it as a PDF

CEO Guido Bauer revealed the difference that a Green Globe certificate can make to a hotel’s bottom line: having the certificate lets hotels increase their room rates by 3-7%, reduces their operating costs by 3-11%, and adds 1-3% to the property’s value.

It’s great that they have proof of the financial benefit – in a cash-strapped economy like the Caribbean, a financial incentive for greening your business is particularly necessary.

I’m a little sceptical about such certification schemes though. Firstly, Green Globes are like several other schemes in that hotels pay to join the organisation which can’t fail to at least slightly compromise their impartiality.

Secondly, a hotel does not need to meet all or even most of the list of criteria in order to pass: they must satisfy just 51%. Some of the criteria are extremely difficult to satisfy (the newest criteria is PVC-free room keys) but you’ve got to ask – what about the other 49%?

I also had trouble with Guido’s comments that Caribbean countries are the most advanced region in the world in terms of sustainability, ahead of nearest contenders New Zealand / Australia / France.

Having stayed in countless hotels in the Caribbean which do not recycle, which turn the air-con on in my room while I’m not there, and which fly in food and beverages from around the world, I found this hard to believe.

Doubly hard after the lecture I attended in December in which Kristian Teleki of SeaWeb told us that outside Europe and North America, 80% of sewage enters the coastal ocean untreated – including in the Caribbean. Tourism is by far the biggest industry in the Caribbean so if 80% of its sewage is untreated, some of this must surely be coming from the hotels. Hardly sustainable!

I put this to Guido Bauer but he said he won’t accept that this is the case with the Caribbean…. I’m going to see if Kristian can point me in the direction of some further info.

The massive expansion of tourism over the last 40 years has led to the rapid decline in the quality of the reef.

Coral everywhere faces the threat of bleaching because water is getting warmer because of climate change. But in highly-developed Cancun, pollution by sewage and chemicals and overfishing mean the coral in this region is dying faster than anywhere else.

The Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network says the amount of reef surface covered by live coral in the Caribbean has fallen about 80% in the past 30 years. In the Pacific, between Hawaii and Indonesia, meanwhile, reefs have been losing about 1% of their coral coverage annually over the past 25 years. eTurboNews spoke to Cancun dive instructors who said they were worried they might not have a job for much longer.

Cancun knew it needed to address the problem, but the country desperately needs its tourist dollars, and Cancun couldn’t turn divers and snorkellers away.

By building the underwater museum – which in effect becomes an artificial reef – there is something new for divers and snorkellers to explore, and the existing coral reef is given chance to recover from years of damage. I doubt it’ll ever get back to its original condition but coral will colonise the inert concrete of the sculptures, creating new coral coverage.

I must admit, the thought of an ‘underwater museum’ didn’t really float my boat at first – I dive to see wildlife, not for cultural enrichment.

But when I checked out the website of Jason de Caires Taylor, the British artist behind the project, I really warmed to the  idea.

‘Museum’ is a bit misleading – it will be more of a sculpture garden, with more than 300 life-size sculptures, such as an army of Mayan warriors, and a ‘dream catcher’ where visitors can leave a message in a bottle. I recognised the photos of his existing project – Taylor built the Underwater Gallery at Moliniere Bay in Grenada.

His description of what it’s like to experience artwork underwater sounds fantastic:

“Underwater and devoid of white walls the viewer is unrestrained in their interaction with the work. Buoyancy and weightlessness enable a detached physical experience, encouraging encounters that are perceptual and personal. As time passes and the works change, they reshape and redefine the underwater landscape in unpredictable ways.”

And the sculptures that have been submerged for some time, now covered in coral polyps and other growth, are really stunning.

Sinking a load of concrete statues is not going to solve the massive and complex threats that coral reefs around the world face but the Underwater Museum does seem like an exciting and innovative step in the right direction.

Its work in tourism ranges from training hotel staff on green technology, to helping them attain certificates of sustainability, to educating tourists on how they can minimise their own impact upon the environment while on holiday.

Its sustainable tourism programme began in Ecuador but it’s really been picking up pace, and has recently signed agreements with the  Guatemala tourist board, and CATA, a tourist board for the whole Central American region.

The Alliance’s Federico Salano tells me he’s seen interest in and take-up of sustainable tourism really surge in the last five years. Europeans are particularly ethically-conscious travellers, he adds.

“You simply cannot make business with European companies if you don’t have a sustainable tourism programme now,” he says. “Now it’s a reality more than a trend.”

There are several UK tour operators who currently work with the Rainforest Alliance, with more big names to come onboard soon. Signing an agreement with the Alliance means the operator commits to ensuring that half of the hotels and other businesses it works with have appropriate green certification.

It sounds like a fantastic programme, but I wonder if they could perhaps set the bar even higher. What’s to stop a tour operator dealing with the most gas-guzzling, tree-felling, water-polluting tourism businesses in the Americas for the other 50% of their business?

One thing’s for sure: the system of green accreditation and certification within the tourism industry needs a proper sort out. There are so many confusing acronyms out there – STCNA, CST, STEP and QTC to name a few – that you can’t see the wood for the trees, if you’ll excuse the pun.

Federico tells me that the Rainforest Alliance is teaming up with the UN and several other bodies to launch the Tourism Sustainability Council or TSC in April next year. It will be the ‘certifier for certifications’, “giving order to the myriad certifications and checklists around the world,” he says.

Great news, but I wish they’d come up with a snappier name!

It’s going through an exciting period right now. It’s hoping to sign codeshare agreements with international players like Continental Airlines, Copa, Mexicana and Iberia in the near future.

This means passengers won’t have to check their luggage back in at Costa Rica’s San Jose airport before they fly onto their final destination with NatureAir.

The airline currently flies only within Costa Rica and to Panama and Nicaragua, but commercial director Alexi Khajavi told me he hopes to expand into Colombia, Honduras and Guatemala soon too.

The airline is based in Costa Rica and offsets all of the carbon emissions it creates by supporting reforestation and conservation projects. It also uses some of the most fuel-efficient aircraft on the market, and runs its craft on biofuel. In May this year, it won a prestigious award for conservation from the World Travel and Tourism Council.

“In one year, what we emit through 100,000 flights is the same as a Boeing 747 in one flight from New York to Heathrow,” Alexi says.

When you see the vast list of ways in which NatureAir gives back – both to the environment and to local communities – you might suppose the airline would struggle to make a profit, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.

“None of our sustainable practices would matter if we weren’t a profit-making business, which we are,” says Alexi. “We’ve taken market share, and we’re growing at a rate of 20% per year.”

I can’t see why other domestic and regional airlines have not followed suit; committing to carbon neutrality certainly seems to have been a successful business model for NatureAir. Alexi points out that NatureAir’s typical client is environmentally-conscious and does not mind paying slightly more for their ticket, in order to fly with a more sustainable airline.

Alexi would certainly welcome other airlines copying NatureAir’s example: “We will always be the first airline to go carbon neutral but we don’t want to be the only one,” he says. “The aviation business is going in this direction. You’ve either got to get on the bus or you’re going to get run over.”

I was impressed to hear that Alexi’s colleagues are attending Copenhagen next month to represent the aviation industry alongside five or six massive international carriers. A “David and Goliath situation” by Alexi’s own admission but NatureAir seems to have just the kind of forward-thinking the aviation industry so desperately needs.