A VOLUNTARY motorhome scheme designed to deal with overtourism in the Highlands has recently been met with huge backlash, with locals calling it a “tone deaf” initiative while there have been debates in the Scottish Parliament which have highlighted “universal disapproval” of the idea.
The Highland Campervan and Motorhome Scheme – set up by Highland Council – allows drivers to park up overnight in a network of council-owned car parks and to use leisure centres for washing and showering, all for a £40 voluntary fee.
But campervan site owners have said the pass undermines established sites which are already struggling with bills, while others have raised its voluntary nature as being toothless because it cannot be enforced.
However, the issue of campervans, particularly on routes such as the North Coast 500, is an urgent one with locals beginning to fear tensions between residents and tourists may boil over due to the strain they are placing on communities and the environment.
So how do we solve the problem? The National spoke to a number of experts in tourism and digital analytics to try and get to the bottom of it.
Gathering data
Many of us are aware in Scotland of the anger brewing amongst Highlanders as they creak under the pressure of overtourism and in particular motorhome use which has grown in popularity since the pandemic.
But digital marketing expert Ewelina Lacka, based at the University of Edinburgh business school, said there is a lack of hard data available to show how many campervans are travelling on routes like the NC500.
She believes developing and installing technology that can gather this information is vital so there is hard evidence to justify investment in infrastructure.
Lacka (below), who has worked on developing overtourism and traffic solutions in Skye, told The National: “The biggest challenge is that we have very little evidence of the number of motorhomes in Scotland.
“I’ve worked with colleagues on Skye [on tourism solutions] and although we have the ability to gather data on the volume of visitor traffic and we can dissect that in terms of type of vehicle, we aren’t able to detect which of those are motorhomes because there is no technology available to capture or distinguish the motorhome from a van, for example.
“There has to be some groundwork done in order to provide that hard evidence of the volume of the motorhomes. If we don’t have that, it is difficult to argue for an investment to support infrastructure that needs to be there.
“If there were technology to detect this [motorhomes] it would be something incredibly beneficial not only for Scotland but for all rural destinations.”
Lacka helped develop a smartphone app called MySkyeTime which provides visitors with live information on how many cars are in car parks at popular destinations on the island or how many people are visiting a place at any one time, but the information the sensors can provide about the volume of motorhomes is limited.
“It has to be recognised first of all that rural tourist destinations have specific problems and campervans are one of those and there has to be technology specifically to capture them,” Lacka added.
“Motorhomes are quite a current phenomenon that people enjoy. We just have to pair technology with that and recognise that in rural settings, on single track roads, campervans create problems on multiple levels. There is only anecdotal evidence [of the issue] at the moment.”
Service areas
One of the big issues with the NC500 is that a lot of the route is single track roads and, combined with Scotland’s right to roam laws and visitors generally wanting that ‘free spirit’ feel to their trip, this results in motorhome users parking in dangerous and inappropriate places with a lack of facilities.
Anna De Jong (below), a senior lecturer in tourism at the University of Glasgow, is supportive of the idea of developing service areas for campervans along the route, an idea which has been raised at Highland Council meetings according to minutes.
She said: “I’m working on a project at the moment and Lochaber is one of the case study sites, so I’m looking at Highland Council meeting minutes.
“One of the things they are talking about is introducing service centres where they would have specific places away from residential areas where campervans would be enticed to go and stay overnight and they would have environmental waste facilities so you can get rid of waste in an environmentally sustainable way, laundry facilities, showers, and they would also have shuttle buses to key sites so there are not high numbers of campervans going to the Fairy Pools for example.
“I think it would work for a certain demographic like families or older people.”
Better education
However, De Jong stressed there would need to be different solutions for different types of tourist.
She believes other groups who are perhaps looking for more adventure and less stringent requirements may benefit from better education around sensible road use.
She said: “The tourist that’s looking for a more wild experience, that’s [service centres] probably not going to work for them.
“Maybe more environmental education programme or communicating that side of things would speak more for that market because they are probably trying to understand the place and the sustainability of the environment [more].”
Lacka is fully behind more work being done to educate tourists visiting the Highlands, as she insisted most motorhome users do not behave badly on purpose but are just unaware of how they should be planning their trip, where facilities are or how they should be conducting themselves.
She said: “Hearing from people who are affected [by campervan users], I know some engage in anti-social behaviours, but I don’t think that is done purposefully. I just don’t think they realise [what they’re doing].
“So I think one aspect is to educate people who use campervans of where the facilities are.
“In theory, they can park on the side of the road. Who can tell them they can’t? But we need to inform them that this is not optimal way of using the vehicle and this is not a good way of behaving.
“Based on my work with Skye, I know very often the visitors, whether they are campervans or others, they just don’t have information as to where certain facilities are so they can plan their trip accordingly. So there is a lot of work to do on information, how it is provided and when.
“The NC500 takes you around Scotland without really indicating where the car park spaces are, where the EV charging points are, where waste disposal points are, and it just asks for problems.”
