AFTER a particularly tough winter, the lifting of travel restrictions for recreation is a welcome boost and many people are eager to venture out and enjoy our amazing landscapes.
We know from last summer that after a long time staying home, there will be huge appetite for travelling to enjoy Scotland’s well known beauty spots and we are looking forward to welcoming people back to the Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park.
However, the huge surge in visitor numbers post-lockdown in 2020 did bring with it challenges and pressures, particularly on communities in popular, rural locations. Increased demand and new visitor audiences less familiar with their responsibilities in a rural setting, saw rises in irresponsible parking and road congestion, littering, and some anti-social behaviour.
With the prospects for international travel still uncertain, we expect demand for daytrips and staycations to remain high this year.
It is crucial that we invest in supporting great visitor experiences so that when they fully reopen, our rural businesses and communities can benefit from the increased numbers of Scots holidaying here in Scotland.
As a National Park Authority, our role has always been to strike a careful balance between providing a well-managed visitor experience for people to enjoy our stunning landscapes, and enhancing the area’s natural assets.
Over the winter months there has been excellent partnership work across a wide range of organisations, both in the national park and at national level in Scotland, to co-ordinate increased resources on the ground and continued improvements to visitor facilities such as toilets and car parking capacity.
The recent additional funding made available across public bodies for visitor management is a positive first step but this investment of resources and effort will need to be a strategic long term endeavour.
The increase in Scots enjoying the outdoors for recreation, or holidaying within Scotland for the first time, is a golden opportunity – both to help our tourism industry recover and to increase awareness of how enjoying, protecting and investing in our precious environment is of crucial importance to a green recovery and a more sustainable and climate-friendly wellbeing economy.
A vital ingredient for the longer term is providing more sustainable travel options for people planning a visit or a holiday in Scotland.
Last year national weekend traffic was up 26% on pre-lockdown levels. While we want to encourage more people to enjoy our beautiful countryside, this cannot mean ever more cars.
In sensitive areas, building more car parks will not help the environment or reduce carbon emissions.
The recent Scottish Government Climate Change Plan update commits to reducing car kilometres by 20% by 2030.
To achieve this in the National Park, we aim to focus on how to achieve modal shift, to help address escalating visitor traffic pressures. A rural transport system that provides for popular visitor travel itineraries will be critical part of a thriving low carbon rural economy.
Gordon Watson, chief executive of Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park. www.lochlomond-trossachs.org
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