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Visiting Copenhagen, Denmark’s vibrant capital? Arrive at its Frilandsmuseet, the Open Air Museum, by bike or public transport, and you’ll get a free coffee; help out in an urban garden and you’ll get a free meal.
It’s all part of the city’s pilot CopenPay scheme, which rewards tourists for planet-friendly actions. The initiative, which runs until 11 August, is unprecedented. But ‘climate rewards’ – which encourage travellers to make sustainable choices – exist elsewhere. Should they become the norm?
Relations between tourists and local people became increasingly fraught this summer, with protests in destinations like Mallorca, Tenerife and Barcelona.
Cruise ships have been advised to prepare to switch their routes to avoid protest groups – such as ones armed with water pistols in Barcelona. Local people are rejecting the relentlessness of mass tourism, which offers them little benefit, while crowding – and pricing – them out of their homes. The Copenpay scheme is a rare ray of positive news: the carrot instead of the stick (or water gun).
“Encouraging responsible travel is essential to mitigate the negative impacts of mass tourism and to foster better relationships between locals and visitors,” says Julijo Srgota, director of the Dubrovnik and Neretva County tourist board. Dubrovnik was named the most ‘overtouristed’ European destination in 2019, and now fines tourists who wheel, rather than carry, noisy suitcases in the old town.
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Most destinations don’t want to see tourism disappear entirely. It makes vast economic contributions. But many do want more responsible visitors.
The CopenPay scheme highlights Copenhagen’s green reputation. The city’s many eco landmarks include CopenHill, a waste-to-energy plant that encourages tourists to slalom down its dry ski slope roof. Other ‘green’ destinations could be well positioned to follow its example. Many are already working towards making tourism more responsible.
“CopenPay is a brilliant way to nudge travellers to make sustainable choices," says Susanna Sorensen, marketing manager at Visit Faroe Islands. They have long insisted that tourism can be used for good, in 2019 announcing temporary closures across the islands, when travellers could come as ‘voluntourists’ and help repair hiking paths.
Places like Iceland and New Zealand encourage travellers to take an online ‘tourism pledge’ to travel responsibly, which includes (for Iceland) promising that “when nature calls, I will not answer the call on nature”.
Others, like Costa Rica, hope to make travel better with green certification schemes for businesses. Barcelona has the most certified sustainable tourism businesses in Europe.
A Booking.com report suggested 76 per cent of travellers want more sustainable options.
This isn’t always expressed in how we travel, as anyone who’s opted for a cheaper, faster flight over a train can attest.
We still need incentives to act – a little nudge in the right direction. Fortunately, green rewards already exist in different guises.
In Belfast in 2017, cycling charity Sustrans set up Pedal Perks, so local businesses could give discounts to patrons on two wheels. It’s now expanding across Northern Ireland. “It encourages people to use active travel to the benefit of local businesses as well as themselves,” says Anne Madden, from Sustrans Northern Ireland.
Each plastic-free July, residents and visitors in cities, beaches and beauty spots globally participate in clean ups. In London, participants are rewarded with a free drink.
“We’re also seeing more and more hotels and destinations around the world rewarding their customers for ‘greener’ behaviour – a welcomed trend,” says Krissy Roe, senior sustainability manager at Inghams, one of the UK’s most experienced specialist tour operators. They offer £200 off holidays to returning guests if they travel by train.
This year, ski areas in the Alps including Morzine – Les Gets and Via Lattea offered up to 25 per cent off ski passes if you came by rail.
Look out for ‘climate rewards’ and ‘green vouchers’. Award-winning holiday company Wild Sweden offers a free meal at Hotel Savoy in Lulea and spa access to those who come to Swedish Lapland by train for their Northern Lights and wildlife holiday. “I highly recommend traveling by night train, it’s the perfect way to start your adventure,” says founder and owner Marcus Eldh. He’s increasingly seeing travellers opt to use Sweden’s electric trains, which run on renewable energy.
Mas Pelegri, an eco-hotel in Girona, Spain, offers guests £50 off if they come from the UK by rail. St Hilda Sea Adventures a family team specialising in small ship cruises along Scotland’s west coast, offer a ‘Green Voucher’ of £50, which guests can choose to donate to the Marine Conservation Society.
And, where there’s no rail, there’s other overland travel. Quinta Alfarrobeira is a small B&B in the Algarve. “Unfortunately, the infrastructure, in particular railways, is not really prepared for the change that’s so desperately needed,” they say. They reward flight-free travellers with a free night’s accommodation. “Of course, it takes more time to travel over land, but to encourage you to do so, we like to compensate a bit.”
So, is this attitude – and the schemes – here to stay? Would you spend your short city break litter-picking, not sightseeing? Or waste a day on the train?
‘Slow travel’ is the art of making the journey part of the experience of your holiday. While over 100 UK companies have signed their staff up to Climate Perks, an employee benefit scheme that offers paid ‘journey days’ in addition to holiday leave. But this attitude is far from the norm in the UK.
While green rewards exist, they’re not yet widespread. Many, like Copenpay, are in a pilot phase. We’d need larger, more joined-up schemes, and bigger incentives, to see real changes to how we behave on holiday. Even then, they aren’t a cure-all for overtourism’s wide-ranging negative impacts.
Still, at a time when tourism has an image problem, climate perks could help repair rocky relationships with our well-loved, but ill-used, holiday destinations.
- Eloise Barker is a writer at Responsible Travel
Read more: Destinations cracking down on overtourism, from Venice to Bhutan
