Blog

  • How Dive Tourism Drives Sustainability and Conservation

    How Dive Tourism Drives Sustainability and Conservation

    Read time: 4 mins

    Exploring the Depths: What is Diving Tourism?

    Diving tourism is a growing segment within adventure travel, offering experiences that bring travellers up close to marine life and underwater landscapes like coral reefs, shipwrecks, and unique marine habitats. It’s an industry that appeals to millions worldwide, with around 6 million Europeans actively participating in diving activities. As interest surges, destinations globally are tailoring their offerings to meet the demand for high-quality, sustainable dive experiences.

    Countries like the UK, France, and Germany lead the European dive tourism market, with divers seeking opportunities to experience new underwater ecosystems. For many, dive tourism is not just a hobby but an immersive journey that promotes awareness and respect for marine environments. But for the industry to thrive, it must prioritize protecting these environments from overuse and degradation. 

  • Agritourism

    Agritourism: A Path to Food Security, Cultural Heritage Recovery, and Peacebuilding

    Read time: 2 mins

    Agritourism is more than just a niche market where travelers visit farms and taste local food, it can also be a powerful tool for empowering communities, especially in underdeveloped regions. By focusing on sustainable agricultural practices and local gastronomy, agritourism helps preserve cultural heritage, build food security, and even contribute to peacebuilding in post-conflict areas.

  • LGBTQ+ Balloon

    Attracting the LGBTQ+ market

    Read time: 2 mins

    The LQBTQ+ travel market is on the rise due to the increasing acceptance of the community worldwide and increasing numbers of Gen Y and Gen Z identifying as LGBTQ+. While many countries still have restrictions and laws that make it difficult for the LGBTQ+ community to travel to, many others have grown in tolerance and acceptance, making travel safe and welcoming for this target group.

  • Overtourism is damaging destinations

    Addressing Overtourism - A Strategic Approach

    Read time: 3 mins

    Overtourism has become a pressing concern for many popular destinations worldwide. The news is flooded with headlines of residents protesting visitors as the numbers rise for summer.

  • Solo Travel

    Unlocking the potential of the European solo tourism market

    Read time: 2 mins

    The solo tourism market is booming with solo travellers now making up 18% of global tourism bookings and they are a growing audience eager to explore independently. To tap into this dynamic market, it’s crucial to understand the motivations, preferences, and behaviours of solo travellers.

  • Certification schemes for UK businesses

    Which sustainability certification is best for your business?

    Read time: 1 min

    Many businesses have been asking this question due to a notable surge in recent times in consumers seeking sustainable products. This trend is particularly evident in the tourism industry, where research indicates a growing preference for sustainable options. However, issues arise around where consumers can find such products without businesses providing evidence of their impacts.

  • 2024: our year so far

    2024: our year so far

    Read time: 2 mins

    This year, we have both worked in both new and familiar destinations. New destinations include Thailand, Tajikistan, and Sint Maarten. We have continued our work in Jordan and started a new project in The Gambia, a country we worked in a couple of years ago. Our sister company T-Stats has also had a very exciting year with a new project for the Southwest of England.

  • Generations BLog

    A snapshot of the different generations in travel

    Read time: 2 mins

    Understanding different generations' travel preferences and traits is crucial when tailoring and selling your product or destination. Each generation has very different travel preferences and interests, and understanding these is essential to making good business decisions.

    This blog highlights each generation's critical expectations when making travel decisions.

  • Empowering sustainable tourism

    Leading from the top: how tourism boards can drive the sector towards a more sustainable future

    Read time: 4 mins

    Tourism boards, both national and regional can play a vital role in supporting their destinations sustainable development. Historically, the traditional role of a tourism board was to market the destination, helping to grow visitor numbers and spending as the main goal. However, with the growing interest and need for the tourism industry to increase its sustainability practices tourism boards must take a more strategic approach. This includes shifting from a streamlined focus on marketing and putting emphasis on research, analysis, development and planning for the destination’s future development.

  • ITB Berlin 2024: Sustainability, Aqaba and Awards

    ITB Berlin 2024: Sustainability, Aqaba and Awards

    Read time: 1 min

    In early March, Director Alison Burgh travelled to ITB Berlin by train as part of Acorn Tourism’s ongoing CBI project work in Jordan. As always, it was a busy few days packed with meetings, awards and some extremely exciting milestones for Aqaba, Jordan.

  • Key trends in tourism for 2024 spearheaded by sustainability and regeneration

    Key trends in tourism for 2024 spearheaded by sustainability and regeneration

    Read time: 2 mins

    Making the transition to a sustainable business is no longer just a trend. It is now an urgent and essential task to tackle the climate crisis and meet the commitment to reduce carbon emissions. Tourism is a major contributor to global climate change and the sector is forecast to grow over the coming years. To manage tourism growth responsibly, urgent steps are required.

  • Navigating a Circular Economy: challenges and opportunities for island based MSME accommodation providers

    Navigating a Circular Economy: challenges and opportunities for island based MSME accommodation providers

    Read time: 4 mins

    The use of circular economy concepts for hospitality businesses has been on the rise in recent years and is a useful way to reduce the environmental impact of their operational practices. In 2022 Acorn Tourism worked with Buro Happold on a World Bank funded project ‘Circular and Resilient Tourism on Small Islands and in Coastal Destinations’. For this project we travelled to Cabo Verde, Sao Tome and Principe and The Gambia to engage with the private sector to better understand the current opportunities and constraints they face in developing a circular economy model.

  • Big and small data infographic

    Making sense of big and small data for destinations

    Read time: 5 mins

    More and more we are hearing that big data has all the answers that destinations are looking for when trying to understand what visitors are doing, where they are going, how much they are spending and so on.  This sounds enticing and useful.  But is it?

  • Overtourism

    Using Data to Avoid Overtourism: Creating Smarter Destinations

    Read time: 2 mins

    Pre-pandemic, the term overtourism was being increasingly used as popular destinations struggled to cope with demand.  It was seldom spoken about in 2021 when focus shifted to encouraging visitors out of their homes to travel freely again, and breathing life back into economies and businesses. 

  • Business and Marketing: What are the next steps towards sustainable destination management

    Business and Marketing: What are the next steps towards sustainable destination management

    Read time: 1 mins

    Sustainable destination management can be challenging, and it may sometimes be difficult to know where to start. From reducing GHG emissions, becoming nature-positive, supporting local businesses, managing waste, water and energy efficiently, etc., destination managers have a lot of responsibilities. All the while marketing and positioning their destination to attract visitors and satisfy their expectations.

  • Acorn Tourism Climate Action Plan

    Celebrating Milestones, Awards, Longstanding Relationships and Our Continued Support to Sustainable Tourism Development

    Read time: 4 mins

    The beginning of 2023 has been a busy one, not only are we celebrating our big 21st Birthday in February, but we have also been awarded with a Green Tourism Gold Award for our ongoing commitment towards sustainability, within our office and operations.  We have also just released or Green Climate Action Plan for 2023, a requirement as a signatory of the Glasgow Declaration. The Glasgow Declaration was launched at COP 26, with the commitment, alongside many other tourism stakeholders, to halve our emissions by 2030.

  • Social Wellbeing

    Social Well-being: What are the next steps towards sustainable destination management

    Read time: 1 min

    Sustainable destination management can be challenging, and it may sometimes be difficult to know where to start. From reducing GHG emissions, becoming nature-positive, supporting local businesses, managing waste, water and energy efficiently, etc., destination managers have a lot of responsibilities. All the while marketing and positioning their destination to attract visitors and satisfy their expectations.

  • Culture and Traditions: What are the next steps towards sustainable destination management?

    Culture and Traditions: What are the next steps towards sustainable destination management?

    Read time: 1 min

    Sustainable destination management can be challenging, and it may sometimes be difficult to know where to start. From reducing GHG emissions, becoming nature-positive, supporting local businesses, managing waste, water and energy efficiently, etc., destination managers have a lot of responsibilities. All the while marketing and positioning their destination to attract visitors and satisfy their expectations.

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