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REAP Tourism can be used to investigate the impact of both staying visitors and day visitors in the whole of the South West region, as well as individual counties, unitary authorities and districts for the year 2006.
As new data becomes available or improved, the user can refine the existing data, create a new baseline or define their own geographic area. The data can be entered for an entire year, individual months or any other time period required.
Data is collected under the themes of accommodation, food and catering, travel, shopping, activities, attractions, events and services.
The environmental impact is measured in global hectares (ecological footprint), tonnes of carbon dioxide or carbon dioxide equivalence (carbon and greenhouse gas footprint), and tonnes of waste and litres of water used.
The impact can be displayed as a total of all tourist activity or as a ‘per tourist day' measure for comparison purposes.
The tool provides users with three options to investigate the impact of tourists. The options are ‘area', ‘visitor types' and ‘events'. The tool also allows the user to investigate the impact of different scenarios, allowing the user to ask ‘what if' questions about factors that may change visitor spend or the environmental consequences of visitor spend.
The ‘area' function allows the user to investigate the change in footprint related to a change in visitor numbers, visitor behaviour or improvements in the efficiency of sectors.
‘Visitor Types' allows the user to compare the footprint of different types of visitor. For example a visitor who camps, eats local organic food and attends a music festival can be compared to one who stays in hotels, eats at restaurants and does shopping.
The ‘Events' function can be used to assess the full impact of an individual event such as Glastonbury or an air show, taking into account the impact of the people who attend the event, the people who staff it and the operational impact of the event itself.
The use of REAP in Scotland has been reviewed by the EPSRC ISSUES Project who look at urban sustainability.
"The Sustainable Urban Environments Programme is an EPSRC funded portfolio of research looking at ways of improving sustainability in the urban environment." (taken from www.urbansustainabilityexchange.org.uk, July 2010)
The full report titled "The Process of Knowledge Transfer from Researcher and Policy Maker to End-User" provides an analysis of the footprinting work done in Scotland and the use of REAP by Scottish Local Authorities. It is available here.
REAP Version 2
Please contact us to get your latest copy of REAP. Read the full news article by clicking more below to find out about the updates and what the type of licence you require.
See the REAP pages for details about licence costs and training packages.
REAP Petite has been updated and improved.
To download a free copy click here
If you are a license holder, contact SEI to get your new version.
SEI have just released a policy brief on Scotland's Footprint.
Our study has shown that Scotland's carbon footprint has grown by 11 per cent since 1992.
The figure includes greenhouse gases released overseas during the production of goods later consumed in Scotland and so is the most accurate gauge of the country's emissions to date.
While emissions generated in Scotland fell by 13 percent between 1995 and 2004, when trade is taken account, greenhouse gases rose by 11 per cent over the same period.
The full policy brief can be found on SEI's website.
An article has also be published in the Sunday Herald and can be found here.