By Salli Felton, acting chief executive of The Travel Foundation
For this year’s Make Holidays Greener Month, we’re doing something a little bit different.
It will still be an opportunity for everyone to do something extra to help the destinations we sell, and to talk about greener holidays with staff and customers, but this July we want to show what tourism can achieve when we act together on a single issue.
Help to clean up your beach
So we’re encouraging everyone to get involved in beach clean-ups.
Here are some reasons why we chose this idea in particular:
- Beaches are a key part of the vast majority of summer holidays. They are a global ‘place’ where tourism meets nature, and represent many of the issues the sector faces.
- Beaches are familiar to all and can help raise awareness of green issues. This was the main reason why, in our ring-around to test a few ideas, travel companies favoured a clean-up.
- They have been a successful part of Make Holidays Greener in the past, and can unite travel companies to take action for the benefit of their resort. For instance, the Federation of Tour Operators has worked with local businesses and suppliers to organise beach cleans in Majorca, Greece and elsewhere, sometimes even diving to collect underwater debris.
- We can build on our work in Cyprus where local communities have come together to make their beaches ‘green’. This
has gone beyond clean-ups
to address issues such as
beach facilities, planting
and tackling litter at source.
- We will be able to show the result of everyone working together by adding up the amount of litter bagged across the globe.
Encourage others to join in
To some, a beach clean-up may seem too small a gesture. And if this is all the industry does to benefit a destination, we’d agree!
But it will be a great way to engage customers, staff and local communities alike about the health of our oceans, and every ton of rubbish that is taken out of the environment is good news for birds, turtles, dolphins and other marine life. If you still aren’t convinced that a clean-up will make a difference, check out the Marine Conservation Society’s Beachwatch campaign, now in its 20th year: mcsuk.org/beachwatch.
Travel is better placed than any other industry to mobilise this kind of action – and, of course, it will benefit from cleaner beaches.
Furthermore, it is well placed to encourage more substantial changes for longer-term impact.
The industry has influential and productive relationships with destination communities and suppliers (hoteliers are often beach owners), and is usually represented on destination management councils. Perhaps we can succeed in banning plastic bag use near certain beaches, or in introducing more litter bins and ashtrays for safe disposal?