Developing a destination climate action plan: insights from Welcome to Fife.
Developing a destination climate action plan is rarely straightforward. Tourism teams often need to work across multiple departments, align with wider regional or national strategies, build support from partners and businesses, and make progress even when data is incomplete. At the same time, escalating climate impacts are driving increased urgency for action, alongside growing expectations from stakeholders for clear, measurable progress.
To explore what this looks like in practice, we spoke with El Spanggaard, Tourism Officer for Fife Council (Welcome to Fife), in Scotland. Drawing on her experience of taking part in the Destination Climate Champions online training course (developed by the Travel Foundation and Expedia Group), El shares what helped shape the next stages of Fife’s climate action plan for tourism and what other destinations can learn from the process.
Starting with structure, not perfection
When El joined Welcome to Fife, some early climate work was already underway, but turning that into a practical action plan required structure. El found the frameworks and templates in the Destination Climate Champions course especially useful, “Having that structure and some of those templates and ideas from the course was a really, really good place for me to start.”
For destinations at an early stage, having a clear framework and an understanding of how to prioritise actions, can make the difference between ambition and implementation. This is especially valuable when responsibilities are shared across multiple teams and organisations.
Working with colleagues, the team at Welcome to Fife adopted a two-phase approach to developing their plan. The first phase focused on building relationships, strengthening internal alignment and establishing a foundation for future delivery, rather than trying to move immediately into technical measurement or large-scale interventions. This included:
- embedding responsible messaging in visitor communications
- strengthening collaboration across teams
- identifying priority data gaps
- preparing for a future measurement framework
Taking this staged approach helped ensure the plan was realistic and deliverable within existing capacity. It also created space to build internal understanding and support before introducing more complexity in later phases. For destinations working with incomplete data, limited resources or complex governance structures, a phased approach like this can provide a practical way to begin making progress while preparing for more detailed implementation over time.
Learning from other destinations facing similar challenges
Alongside its eight online modules, the Destination Climate Champions course also includes two peer-to-peer learning sessions that enable participants to share ideas, challenges and solutions. For El, this was one of the most valuable parts of the course, enabling her to hear directly from peers, understand how other destinations tackled similar barriers, and helping to build confidence and momentum. “Each destination and each challenge is so unique. But hearing how other people approached things helped me understand there are different ways to move forward.”
Building internal buy-in across departments
Like many Destination Management Organisations (DMOs), Welcome to Fife sits within a complex network of government and private sector organisations. Developing a tourism climate action plan in this context requires coordination across multiple teams. For El, avoiding duplication, and not stepping on the toes of other departments, was an important consideration.
Rather than waiting for alignment, El focused on starting conversations early. “Just having that first conversation is so important. I’ve never been told no when I reached out to another team.”
Highlighting the intersection of tourism with areas such as infrastructure, transport and community wellbeing can help to open doors internally and build collaboration.
Advice for destinations just getting started
El’s experience highlights several practical lessons:
- Start with structure rather than waiting for perfect data.
- Connect early with other departments.
- Document progress clearly so others can build on it.
- Design plans in phases so they remain realistic.
- Focus on shared benefits for communities, businesses and visitors.
Supporting destinations to take the first step
As Welcome to Fife’s experience shows, developing a destination climate action plan involves working across teams, building internal support, navigating data gaps and finding practical ways to move forward within real organisational constraints.
The Destination Climate Champions course was designed to support destinations through exactly these challenges. It brings together practical tools, expert guidance and real-world examples from destinations already taking action, alongside opportunities to learn directly from peers facing similar issues.
Whether your destination is strengthening an existing plan or working to align partners around a shared approach, the course provides a structured way forward and access to a growing network of practitioners working to build more resilient tourism destinations.
Destination Climate Champions
A free, online training course for destination managers and marketers, providing the knowledge and skills to future-proof your destination.
