This weeks green blog reports on Jon Presslings recent trip to the Green Awareness Training that he attended earlier this week. 

Two years ago, Blue Chip Vacations was rewarded for its work towards sustainable tourism by being awarded the Silver Green Tourism Business Scheme (GTBS) award. This involved our business being assessed against a rigorous set of criteria covering a range of areas including energy and water efficiency, waste management, biodiversity and more.

Not wanting to be a business that lets the grass grow beneath us we are now striving towards achieving a Gold Award. As part of this I recently attended a course on "Green Awareness Training", organised by the Devon Tourism Skills Network.

The aim of this one day training course is to learn how to equip yourself with the skills and motivation to adopt a sustainable approach to your business practices - saving you money, winning you new customers and caring for the environment.

The course itself provides practical tips, case studies and opportunities to devise your own plans, providing an excellent foundation for joining the GTBS. It also allows you the perfect opportunity to network with other tourism related businesses and throw around lots of ideas which may have resulted in some strange looks back in the workplace.

Much of the topics and information that you discuss can also be applied to your home and leave you questioning how your everyday life could be so wasteful. This is a course where your mind will leave full of money saving ideas and your next shopping list will consist entirely of energy efficient light bulbs.

So with my green action plan covered in notes I'm off to cover some cardboard in tin foil and stick them behind the radiators, you had to be there to understand.

If all this talk of being environmentally friendly has caught your interest then I highly recommend attending the next Green Awareness Training day held in Sidmouth on March 11th. Further details are available at www.devontourismadvice.co.uk or by calling 01392 382922. Extra green points for those arriving by sustainable modes of transport!