PUT them all together in the same place at the same time and the results are extraordinary. Scenery, landscape, clean air, wildfire, a heritage of farm fields and buildings, culture, community spirit — all the ingredients of the rich, heady and addictive potion of the perfect rural environment.

This is the environment that has made the United Kingdom’s rural areas world-famous for their effects on visitors. Today, the UK countryside — that large part of the nation’s vividly varied and often beautiful land area that has resisted the onward march of urban townscapes — is firmly on the world map.

But so powerful is the attraction of the UK’s countryside that in recent decades its very survival has come under severe threat from the sheer quantity of visitors desperate to drink in the potion, and from some of the commercial operators that moved in to make money from tourists.

The same problems have surfaced in many other parts of the world outstandingly attractive rural areas but the UK — in a highly promising initiative – is becoming one of the first countries to get within sight of the ambitious goal of sustainable tourism.

Several factors have sharpened this vision, not least of which is the rapid way in which many communities and rural agencies have realised the crucial importance of tourism to today’s rural economy.

The outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease that swept through England and Wales last year showed rural communities in despair. But behind the scenes the outbreak served powerfully to focus attention more than ever before on the role of the countryside.

“The crisis gave us all poignant reminder of just how much we already depend on tourism to underpin life in rural regions of the UK,” said Alan Britten, chairman of the English Tourism Council.

“The traditional role of the countryside is changing. Yet if we want to preserve our rural heritage we must recognise that tourism is not an activity to be undertaken lightly. It must be handled sensitively and in a way that reflects local needs and culture.”

Britten warns that the effects of today’s tourists on the UK countryside must not impair the quality of experience for the residents or the visitors of tomorrow.

His vision heralds the acceptance nationwide of the need for environmentally sensitive and responsible tourism – or green tourism — the concept of minimising the industry’s effects on global resources while respecting the environment and taking account of the needs of communities.

It all sounds fine in theory. But throughout the UK, sustainable tourism is also proving fine in practice. For example, one engagingly simple and effective initiative is a “green audit kit” to help the thousands of small tourism business throughout the UK to realise how they can help achieve the goal of sustainability.

An easy-to-follow package of advice and ideas spells out many actions through which tourism enterprises can invest in their businesses and the environment.

Since last year, when the kit became available, tourism business large and small throughout the UK have begun creating and improving their own environmental policies, while involving their staff and their customers.

The UK’s Countryside Agency and the English Tourism Council, which developed the green audit kit, report an enthusiastically positive response from tourism business and their customers nationwide.

Operations are heeding the agencies’ advice to publicise their environmental credentials as they become established, to add value to their businesses.

It all makes great sense inside the ancient oak-beamed rooms of the thatched Old Bakehouse restaurant and bed-and-breakfast business in Chulmleigh, a picturesque village in the south-west England county of Devon.

There, this small rural business made an annual saving of £750 on electricity alone, simply by changing 20 light-bulbs to low energy models, converting baths to shower units installing economy programmes in its dishwasher and two washing machines.

Its owner Holly Burls said: “The green audit kit has made us aware of environmental waste and has resulted in positive savings to our business of around £1,500 a year.”

Similar reports are coming in from across the land. Many businesses say the response from their visitors is outstandingly positive. Early signs suggest the businesses most actively promoting sustainable tourism are also winning higher-than-ever levels of repeat business.

The kit’s advice may be simple but its aims are far-reaching. By focusing on green aspects of marketing and on environmentally geared improvements to use of energy and water, purchasing policies, waste and maximising visitor enjoyment, tourism operators are beginning to appreciate the long-term benefits of genuinely sustainable tourism.

Tourism chief Alan Britten added: “The landscapes, cultural richness and biodiversity of our countryside are increasingly seen as a reason for overseas visitors to come to the UK, and for British visitors to stay here on vacation. Tourism can be a truly creative force in conserving the factors on which it depends. Our aim is to make sure tourism is able to meet these expectations.”

Britten points to real-world indicators that sustainable tourism is beginning to thrive. Increasingly, surveys show that residents in popular tourist areas realise that income from visitors helps to keep open many of the services they use, and they do not feel swamped by tourists, some of whom will be their own guests.

Market towns and protected areas welcome their tourist-driven prosperity and conservation. Damage to the environment caused by visitors or inappropriate tourism development is minimal and declining, reports a new Countryside Agency strategy.

Everything points to the likelihood that the traditional image of the tourist in the UK will be banished to the 20th century. That was an age when tourists might travel hundreds of kilometres, usually by car, to pursue some non-essential activity they would equally well do closer to home.

Today, perhaps more than ever, town- and city-dwellers and people living in the countryside are beginning to think along the same, green, lines. For the city-dweller, this national move towards sustainable tourism promises a better tourism experience in terms of value, enjoyment and community well-being.

For the country-dweller, the concept holds out the hope of better economic stability, fewer pressures to disturb the delicate balances of rural life and a clearer national and international vision of the value of the UK’s unique wealth of rural riches. And for the visitor from overseas, the approach of sustainable tourism in the UK promises a sure-footed way to experience a nation at its best.

— London Press Service