Sustainable Tourism & Slow Travel Scotland
Big Sky Campers
Big Sky Campers
We started our campervan hire company in Scotland because of our love of slow travel, Scotland and, of course, VW campervans. We believe that tourism can be a force for good and are committed to playing our part in making sure Scotland and Scottish communities benefit from the tourism industry. We are very conscious that our business has an environmental impact and want to minimise that impact as much as possible. We hope that our customers will help us to achieve both these aims.
As part of the tourism industry in Scotland we are benefitting from tourism, we want others to benefit from our business too
We provide information and support to make it easy for our customers to holiday responsibly
Slow Travel is good for small, local communities so we do everything we can to help our customers get off the beaten track
On local communities, Scotland’s natural environment and climate change
Which is working to save Scotland’s mountain paths for future generations
So that the benefits of Scotland’s tourist industry reach local communities
Over 3 million international travellers visit Scotland each year, the vast majority to holiday or visit friends and family. Add to this the 13.5 million overnight visits from people living in Britain and you can see the extent to which tourism is an essential part of Scotland’s national life. Tourism contributes over £6 billion to the Scottish economy and employs over 200,000 people. In Edinburgh alone, over 33,000 people are employed in the tourism sector. So it is an incredibly valuable industry, as well as being a growth industry.
The impact of tourism isn’t always a positive one. A recent survey of Scottish residents identified overcrowding, littering, environmental impacts and increased carbon emissions are some of the downsides.
Some of the islands and more rural areas do not have the infrastructure to support huge numbers of tourists. Even the larger islands can creak a bit under the weight of numbers of summer visitors. The Isle of Skye, for example, has a population of just over 10,000 and attracts over 650,000 visitors each year.
Despite the impact, tourism is overwhelmingly viewed as a force for good by Scottish residents and you will receive a warm welcome from the locals.
Agree tourism helps conserve Scotland’s built heritage
Agree tourism adds to the vitality of Scotland’s communities
Agree tourism helps connect local communities to other cultures
Agree that tourism helps Scotland’s positive reputation abroad
As owners of a tourism business, we want to play our part in ensuring tourism is a force for good in Scotland and we hope that you, our customers, will help us by choosing to travel responsibly.
Your choice to travel responsibly will help:
Protect the natural landscape
Boost the local economy and support small businesses
Help conservation efforts and provide funding for local projects and infrastructure
Help protect Scotland’s amazing natural landscape and beauty
Minimise the disruption to local communities’ daily lives
Please choose to:
Don’t park where you will block access or in passing points on a single track road.
Take it slow on smaller roads and through villages, be considerate of other drivers
Take your litter away with you and dispose of responsibly
Avoid the busier places in the peak tourist season, or travel out of season
Camp in a campsite or park up if possible. If not, check if you need landowner permission, don’t disturb anyone and leave no trace of your stay behind
Big Sky Campers:
We encourage people to travel in the off season and publicise events taking place all year round
We publicise campsites that are open all year round
We give our customers the information they need to understand what they need to do
We promote the Scottish Outdoor Access Code to our customers and carry copies of it in our vans
We provide bin bags and recycling bags in our vans
One of the key ways we can contribute to sustainable tourism in Scotland is by promoting slow travel in Scotland. Slow travel really is exactly what campervanning is about. It is an approach to travel that emphasises taking your time, connecting to local people, places and culture. The beauty of campervanning is that you don’t have to rush from place to place, you can take your time, wander where you will and travel off the beaten track.
Please choose to:
Big Sky Campers:
Many of Scotland’s mountain paths have eroded badly. People no longer take the path routes because of the risk of landslides. This means that there is more of an impact on the landscape when people walk these routes. Big Sky Campers is proud to support the campaign “It’s Up To Us”. This project run by the Outdoor Access Trust for Scotland and Mountaineering Scotland will rebuild the paths to support the landscape and surrounding biodiversity. We would love it if any of our customers who have enjoyed Scotland’s wonderful natural landscape would also consider supporting this work.
We recognise our business has an environmental impact and try to minimise this wherever we can. Nevertheless, we have to accept that our customers will want to cover as much of Scotland as they can during their holiday. With this in mind we make sure that our campervans are well maintained and regularly serviced to be as fuel efficient as possible. All our campervans are ULEZ compliant. Our campervans use VW Blue Motion Technology to improve fuel efficiency and reduce emissions. The vans can reach up to 44 miles per gallon. The average CO2 emissions are 159g/km.
Scottish water is safe to drink and each van leaves with a full water tank and a water carrier that can be used to refill water bottles and the tank
We supply solar showers, hot water bottles, warm bedding, blankets and extra sets of bedding free of charge
We supply washable cloths and washing up liquid and cleaning products which are all refilled regularly with eco friendly products
We supply shovels and bin bags so those wild camping can do so without leaving a trace
We support our customers to use public transport to reach our HQ by providing a collection service from the bus and train station
Our warehouse does not use hot water or lighting and there is no heating. Electricity supply is 100% from renewable sources.
We supply bike racks for free to encourage our customers to explore on two wheels as well as 4
We provide a tote shopping bag in the van so customers don’t use plastic bags
Big Sky Campers is conscious that the nature of our business has an environmental impact. We are always looking at ways that we can minimise that impact and contribute to more sustainable travel. We aim to add fully electric campervans to our fleet as soon as this would be practical and positive for our customers’ experience. At the moment there are no electric vehicles on the market that are suitable. And whilst Scotland has more charging points per capita than any other part of the UK, there are often long distances between charging points in the rural areas which our customers want to visit. We need to ensure customers do not get stuck without any ‘charge’ and don’t feel that there is the necessary infrastructure in place yet to ensure this.
Scotland
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