Creating sustainable tourism

Pembrokeshire’s Bluestone National Park Resort has been named the overall national Example of Excellence in the Rural Action category during Business in the Community’s annual responsible business awards, the 2011 Awards for Excellence.

Following on from their ‘Big Tick’ win at the Welsh awards event in June, Bluestone beat off stiff competition from organisations across the UK including EDF Energy and Milklink to win the accolade.

Bluestone’s award winning initiative is believed to be a world first for the leisure industry. Their landmark leisure attraction, the Blue Lagoon, is heated from biomass energy that comes from crops grown by local farmers. This partnership with Pembrokeshire’s farming community invests in the local economy and reduces the resort’s carbon footprint. This award winning initiative was recognised by judges for having ‘sustainability at its very heart’, and for the courageous approach with which the business supports the region’s rural economy.

William McNamara, founder and managing director of Bluestone, said: “This is a proud day for us. We set out to establish Bluestone as an environmentally sustainable business working with our local community. Just three years after we opened Bluestone, we have achieved national recognition for our work. But we have much more to do and being named as a national ‘Example of Excellence’ will drive us forward to achieve much more.”

See more on the award at the BITC site here

William McNamara is also chair of Attract Marketing client, the Pembroke Dock Sunderland Trust that with support from the Welsh Government and others including the Milford Haven Port Authority and Chevron has set up the Flying Boat Interpretation Centre and Workshop within the old Royal Dockyard and that now attracts many thousands of visitors since its opening in 2009. The Trust is leading initiatives to create a major visitor attraction and museum which will reflect the remarkable military heritage and the social development of Pembroke Dock over the last 200 years. Plans centre on the beautifully restored Garrison Chapel, dating from 1830, and one of the most significant military buildings in Wales.