You are here: Home -› Ambassador Dolbeare Park-Chris Cousens

Just over three years ago I knew very little about sustainable tourism since my husband and I lived in the city and my only concern was remembering to put the rubbish and recycling out!  Our change in lifestyle meant a move to Cornwall, learning to live in the country and the highs and lows of owning a touring caravan and camping park – and knowing fairly little about the UK tourism industry!
Today, I know a little more about sustainable tourism but it is such a huge subject that my knowledge is probably just the tip of the iceberg.

When we bought Dolbeare Park, it did very little for the environment and this was an area that needed huge improvement.  First stop was, CoaST, which I found whilst searching on the Internet.  I soon contacted Jacqui who came to do a review of our park, gave me heaps of ideas and suggestions and also put me in touch with the GTBS scheme (which I had never heard of before!).  The criteria seemed vast so we adopted a plan of action and I had already identified a number of areas that we could improve upon – measuring and monitoring, encouraging recycling, a greenhouse we inherited where previously I had never set foot in one, a nine acre park that we were responsible for whether it be nature or wildlife – it was a steep and altogether frightening learning curve and we spent time researching, improving and justifying the decisions we made and still are – this is a constant area of discussion!
The results being that within six months we had successfully achieved a GTBS Gold Award – our hard work had really paid off.  The difference now is that we all recognise that everything we do on the park has an environmental impact, we have also learnt that we can’t change everything, some things are just too costly and impractical.  However, things that we can impact upon, we try incredibly hard to achieve – and have also found a few unlikely gems such as the rotating compost bins – compost in just 14 days!
Achieving the GTBS has also meant that we haven’t reduced the quality of the park, since we went from a Visit Britain 4 star park to a 5 star park and last year we achieved Silver at the Cornwall Tourism Awards for the Best Caravan and Camping Park in Cornwall.  We were also voted Regional Winner of the Practical Caravan Top 100 Awards last year by our customers – we must be doing something right!