Eco-Tourism
Northumberland National Park is one of the three main visitor attractions of North East England as identified by the One North East Regional Marketing Strategy. Tourism is an important and growing business sector in and around the National Park and the revenue generated by the tourism industry contributes significantly to the rural economy and helping to sustain many local businesses, both directly and indirectly. However, the current tourism offer is limited.
The National Park’s tourism industry is comprised mostly of micro-businesses, the vast majority of these being accommodation providers. The limited product almost certainly reflects the expectations and needs a customer base dominated by day visitors. There are significant opportunities to extend the visitor economy in the Park and this programme aims to seize these opportunities.
There is considerable potential to develop and improve facilities and services that support cycle tourism and leisure cycling by day visitors in the National Park. As well as developing new self-guided cycle trails, the Authority is also supporting the implementation of ‘cycle hubs’ in two of its ‘gateway’ towns of Haltwhistle and Wooler.
These ‘hubs’ will enhance the current tourism offer by providing high quality routes from the town centre with easy access to safe, traffic-free shared-use paths together with ample cyclist-friendly facilities, accommodation (accredited to the Cyclists Welcome Scheme), services and information. Working closely with businesses and community groups to implement this project will ensure that as many people as possible within the community benefit from the development of the hub, as well as the visiting cyclists who will enjoy the facilities and the welcome they receive.
Another emerging mode of transport that could be linked to the cycle hub project as well the electric car network (see Electric Transport) is the provision of light electric vehicles, which could be hired out from businesses in the two market towns of Haltwhistle and Wooler.
The innovative spirit of this venture could be extended to interpretation of the natural and cultural heritage of the area to users through the use of Global Positioning System-activated (GPS) Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) installed on the e-vehicles for hire, or as downloads on individuals sat-navigation systems.
New skills and training opportunities around these new electric-networks could include schemes for unemployed people to learn skills in bike and electric-vehicle maintenance, bike-hire and business management, marketing, visitor welcome, heritage interpretation and designing new GPS activated routes using information technology and web-based skills.
Minor investments to make the Park more welcoming and attractive to all people in our society, by improving basic facilities and infrastructure and developing new tourism products are overdue and will reap immediate benefits to the health and well-being of the region and open new tourism markets even further. As an industry there is also a responsibility to convey the fragile nature of this resource and the need to care and look after it for future generations to enjoy.
External Links