Sustaining the environment and visitor economy in Cornwall

The tourism industry, particularly in rural and coastal areas, is often heavily reliant on thriving ecosystems. Healthy ecosystems bring a range of benefits, not least the provision of food, water, and natural beauty for the visitor and local community alike. However, tourists can threaten the quality of the local environment, and the ‘burden’ of over-tourism is a growing concern in many parts of the world (Wood et al., 2019). The COVID-19 pandemic has heightened concern about the potential for over-tourism in Cornwall, as increasing numbers of people have taken their holidays ‘at home’ in the UK rather than abroad. At the time of writing, summer 2021 looks set to place further pressure on Cornwall’s local environment. However, the impacts of the pandemic also present an opportunity to explore ways of rebuilding the economy and society, to put nature’s recovery centre-stage. Funding from Research England’s Strategic Priorities Fund, administered through the University of Exeter, allowed partners and researchers to conduct a short project (running between January and March 2021) to explore potential policy ideas that could be further developed in the future. Our task was to identify, evaluate, and test the acceptance of locally-relevant evidence based ideas to: (1) Reduce any negative impact of tourism on nature in Cornwall; and (2) Generate understanding, funds, and volunteer time to protect and restore nature in Cornwall. Following a review of potential policy innovations, the partners and additional stakeholders agreed to focus on the development of nature-based activities, funding mechanisms, and appropriate organisational infrastructures to support nature and a sustainable visitor economy. This report outlines findings from investigations into these ideas, including recordings from a workshop, interviews with key stakeholders, and surveys conducted with nature-based activity providers, residents and visitors. Participation in nature-based activities is widely seen as a core attraction of Cornwall’s visitor economy. Ideas for their development initially focused on certification and standards as methods to ensure appropriate visitor engagement with nature, and to generate revenue for nature-focused organisations that would provide the expertise to train activity businesses, in return for qualified promotion. Given the diversity of activity provision and practical difficulty of standards enforcement, the support for such measures was not universal. However, opportunities were identified for training hospitality staff to effectively become front-line marketers for nature-based activities, and in developing nature recovery projects as a new type of attraction to which visitor contributions could produce tangible, shared benefits. Funding mechanisms to support the protection and restoration of nature aroused strong opinions in relation to the recurring topic of a tourism tax. Industry participants made clear their opposition to such a measure. Survey respondents, both residents and visitors, indicated a preference for visitors to contribute in comparison to locals, although the exact mechanism was generally unspecified. Best practice local examples of visitor gifting schemes point towards a solution to suit all parties, and this approach could be developed on a wider scale. Examples of networks at the local, regional, and sectoral scales were discussed, generating a variety of viewpoints about the best model for developing and delivering locally-led nature-based activities and visitor giving. Institutional support was advocated to encourage collaborative local endeavours, with the potential to benefit nature, communities, businesses, and visitors. Development of the rural visitor economy and the emergence of technological infrastructure were also raised as potential routes to mitigate the impact of overtourism and seasonality effects. These approaches have the potential to be further developed.