electric charge location for consumer convenience.
Coach tours
Most coaches are 60 seater and upwards. This means that a facility will need a special parking zone to park large vehicles. Most businesses need prior warning so they can book coaches into specific time slots. Coach travellers tend to spend less per head and also require good toilet facilities. Remember, the arrival of a coach means a rush of people at a specific time slot and a facility operator has to question whether they want and can cope with such an influx.
Most tourist facilities will gift something in for the coach driver and guide for bringing a group of visitors to their facility. This is often expected by the coach operator and should be costed into the financing of coach-party activities. Culinary walks
Not all culinary tourists want to drive or cycle to locations, some want to walk and ‘smell’ the flowers on the way. Walking tours are another way vis- itors may like to experience the culinary journey.
This may mean a walk as long as the 800 km ‘Camino de Santiago de Compostela’ (‘Way of St James’) in northern Spain that Linda Stanley took 2 months to walk, or it may be as short as a 30 min walk around the farm. Walks can also be designed for different demographic groups and age profiles.
The main objective is that it provides the right amount of exercise with an educational and culinary experience. The depth of information provided can be targeted to the audience. For example, a survey of children in the UK in June 2013 indicated that 25% of children surveyed thought cheese came from plants. In other words, keep information basic for children. When working with professional groups, you had better know the Latin or botan- ical names of plants along the route.
An example of what can be achieved is the ‘Urban Herbal Walk’ of Grimsby in the UK. Grimsby is a fishing town located on the North Sea coast. An entrepreneurial group organized an herbal walk around the town to indicate to walkers what local plants were edible and to explain food sources of the past.
Forage walks are also organized in Epping Forest, Oxford and Brighton in the UK. In the USA there is Forage (http://foragesf.com/wild-food-walks), which organizes walks around San Francisco.
In Australia the town of Orange has F.O.O.D.11 week and part of that week consists of organized forage walks around local farms and vineyards.
The same can be done in any country as every region has its local edible food plants that are often unknown to the modern urban dweller.
In Australia foraging has been taken to the next stage. Leviathan,12 one
food business, has introduced a Transient Degustation restaurant. The guests go foraging with the chef and then an eight-course meal is prepared by the ‘foodie’ with the chef. This must be the true bush culinary experience.
This is also an opportunity to work with local aboriginal communities in some countries.
When the authors were in Arizona we were fascinated to discover that the local tribes based their garden foraging on three plants grown in combin- ation. Known as the ‘Three Sisters’, this growing method has been adapted by many aboriginal communities in the region. Beans were grown up the maize support and also provided nitrogen to the soil and squash shaded the ground around the plants and eliminated the weeds. Without going on a forage tour with a local, we would never have found this out.
The message is walkers may think that the natural plants around them are weeds or are common plants, but, to a ‘foodie’ walker it is a potential culinary experience.
Touring by bicycle
Times change. John was raised in Birmingham in the UK and can remember the city promoting itself as a city designed for the car user and the future.
In our consultancy with retail and tourist businesses, in the past one of the key issues was, and still is, enabling efficient vehicle access to the busi- ness and the correct ratio of parking lots to retail space.
Now cities such as Amsterdam and Copenhagen are promoted as bike-friendly cities. London, like many cities, now has a council-operated bike-sharing scheme where locals can pick up a bike from a set location and drop it off at the end of their journey at the nearest bike park.
In 2013, bike sales in Europe exceeded car sales in 26 out of 28 European countries. In 2013 19.7 million bikes were sold and sales are increasing.13 In Australia, according to the Amy Gillett Foundation, bike sales have exceeded car sales for nearly a decade.14
The Tour de France is the most watched annual sports event in the world; farmers and local businesses know the power of the bike and sponsor it across Europe. In 2014 the race started in Yorkshire and was a huge benefit in the promotion of culinary tourism in that region.
Fig. 2.2. Chicago in the USA is one of the cities that are promoting bikes as a means of transport.
The bike has re-emerged as an eco-friendly form of transport that also keeps tourists fit.
We now have promotions such as Bike Week, National Ride to Work Day, Car Free Days and Bike to School Days, all aimed at getting us more active on two wheels.
Bike trails are appearing around the world both in cities and as rural tracks. The longest bike trail in the world is the Munda Biddi Trail (www.
mundabiddi.org.au) in south Western Australia.
Being bike-friendly
The resurgence of bike riding provides new opportunities for businesses. For example, the Albany Bike Users Group in Albany, Western Australia, are promoting bike-accredited businesses. To become an accredited business the business has to provide free air, in case of a puncture or tyre needing to be pumped up, complimentary water to the cyclist, bike racks, and carbo- hydrates on the menu if a food outlet. Accreditation is a simple process, but could become a great marketing tool.
Cycle-friendly accredited towns
The next logical progression is to develop cycle-friendly towns and cities and the Bike Users Group is helping to develop this concept. Towns and cities that want to develop this strategy need to establish a Cyclist Advisory Committee and a Bicycle Programme Manager.
Consideration needs to be given to the existing transport system and their attitude to carrying bikes. Buses, taxis, trains and rental car companies would all need to address their policy on bikes and develop bike-friendly policies.
Bike racks need to be strategically placed around the community, with guidelines on the correct ratio to bikes, and the rack would need to be to a national specification. Local authorities need to develop phone apps on bike routes to help cyclists plan routes around the town and to local attractions. One of the key strategies is to ensure bike tracks link in safely to allow the rider to travel around the territory and not have to negotiate heavy traffic and dangerous road junctions.
Transport will be an ongoing issue and new ways of transporting people to rural areas around the world will continue to evolve.
References
1 The Trend Report 2014, www.trendwatching.com, authors are subscribers to the book/report
proceedings.
2 ICTA/ICTD State of the Culinary Tourism Industry report 2010. Available at: www.great-
taste.net/tidbits-kudos/tidbits/new-2010-state-of-the-culinary-tourism-industry-report- readiness-index-now-available-to-trade-2 (accessed 12 December 2010).
3 Experience Renewal Solutions Inc. (2009) On-Farm Marketing in Ontario – 2009 Report. Available
at: http://www.ontariofarmfresh.com/pdfs/newsletters/OnFarmMarketingInOntario2009.pdf
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Available at: www.mtc.gov.on.ca/en/tourism/research.shtml (accessed 10 December 2010).
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www.facebook.com/pages/Farmers-in-the-Playground-Growing-Gardeners-Healthy Eaters/ 371152483001433 (accessed 1 November 2013).
8 Canadian Health Department allergy list. Available at: www.hc-sc.gc.ca/fn-an/securit/index-
eng.php (accessed 4 December 2013).
9 British Department of Transport. Vehicular Access to All-Purpose Trunk Roads. Available at:
www.dft.gov.uk/ha/standards/dmrb/vol6/section2/td4195.pdf (accessed 5 January 2014).
10 Berninger, L. (1978) Profitable Garden Center Management, 1st edn. Reston Publishing, Colorado. 11 Orange F.O.O.D. Week. Available at: www.tasteorange.com.au/foodwk_home (accessed 21
February 2014).
12 Leviathan Video. Available at: www.au.gwn7.yahoo.com/w2/news/a/-/local/19290393/
new-dining-craze-in-wa-video (accessed 21 February 2014).
13 Bike Sales in Europe: article in The West Australian 5/12/13 on research by COLIBI and
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14 Amy Gillett Foundation. Australian Study Blames Drivers For Bike Crashes. AlertDriving
Magazine, December 2010. Available at: www.alertdriving.com/home/content/australian- study-blames-drivers-bike-crashes (accessed 21 February 2014).
Websites
Forage walks in San Francisco, California: http://foragesf.com/wild-food-walks (accessed
14 January 2014).
Gardening 4 Kids. Available at: www.gardening4kids.com.au (accessed 13 February 2014). Munda Biddi Trail: www.mundabiddi.org.au (accessed 21 February 2014).
The Nursery and Garden Industry Association of New Zealand: www.nginz.co.nz (accessed