Green Tourism

Our guests have a great love of the natural and urban heritage that surrounds our waterways. It's one of the reasons they choose to holiday with us. Sustainable and environmentally-aware tourism is an important part of what we do - and we thought that you would be interested to read about some of the ways that we look to acheive our goal.

As the owners and operators of Snipe and Taurus, we are proud to be continuing a business that has always been associated with ensuring our canals and their traditions are preserved. It is important to us that as a hotel boat business we are not only aware of our heritage responsibilities but also of our local and wider environment, ensuring that we are not damaging the very environment our guests come to enjoy.

The heritage surrounding the waterways in the U.K. is perhaps their best-known aspect. The company that originally owned Snipe and Taurus, Inland Waterway Holiday Cruises, was established when the leisure industry on the canals was in its infancy. Hotel boats worked along side cargo carrying narrowboats, but while cargo declined, the passenger boats have developed, and helped preserve the waterways and their traditions. We are one of the few businesses continuing to operate a pair of boats, and use associated traditional skills. By working a butty we are preserving skills used when boats were horse drawn. We encourage guests to join in and learn these skills if they wish. Our boats are decorated in the traditional manner, with roses and castles, all the decorations and signwriting is hand painted. Scrubbed white ropework is still used and the traditional brass is kept shining.

Our cruises not only take our guests through wonderfully isolated areas of the countryside, but we pass through the industrial midlands, allowing our guests the opportunity to appreciate the industrial heritage of our canal system. We arrange excursions to visit canal-side sites including Wedgwood and Cadbury World, tourist attractions built around factories originally dependent on the canals.
By accommodating nine guests, we have little detrimental impact on the places we visit in terms of numbers. This is also advantageous for our guests as they have the opportunity to be visitors, not mass tourists. We encourage the appreciation of touring a small area – at slow speeds, on our holidays less definitely equals more, our objective is to give value in terms of quality, and not quantity of places visited. Travelling at about 3 miles per hour, we cover around 70 miles per week. Rather than rush around tourist sites, our guests can take pleasure in the quieter things in life: the beauty of ever-changing landscapes, reflections on still water, good food and the company of friendly interesting people. We have a library of wildlife and waterway reference books to complement what our guests see en-route.

Although most of our power is produced by our main propulsion engine, we have a backup generator to supplement the main engine. The 'Whispergen' generator was not the cheapest option available, but it has many environmental advantages. It is powered by an internal combustion ‘Sterling engine’, which is highly efficient and keeps exhaust emissions to a minimum. Nearly all the heat produced in the engine is recovered via internal heat exchangers, and is pumped through a calorifier and radiators to provide domestic hot water and to heat the boat. Fuel consumption at normal running is as low as 0.4 litres per hour. The overall efficiency of the engine is therefore as high as 80-90% compared to a conventional diesel engine at 20-30%. Also, as its name suggests, noise emissions are also minimal.

For the main engine a Deutz D 4.29 oil cooled diesel engine was installed. It was carefully chosen, because of its exceptional standards for low noise and exhaust emissions. The engine complies with the Lake Constance (Bodensee) BSO II emissions regulations – the most stringent regulations for marine engines worldwide. Low engine exhaust emissions are created by fuel being injected at very high pressure, and the cylinder head running at high temperature, therefore fuel combustion is made more efficient and nitrous oxide emissions reduced. The 240v power produced while the engine is running for propulsion is stored in batteries so guests have the luxuries of a hotel 24 hours a day, but without a generator disturbing the peace of the countryside once we have moored for the night. To help power efficiency further low energy halogen lighting is installed throughout.

Engine noise emissions are low because the engine coolant is oil, which does not transmit noise, as a water coolant does. Also, the engine has been flexibly mounted to reduce vibration, and the whole unit has been enclosed in a sound proofed box to reduce the noise even further. As proof of this it has been noted that birds often don’t fly away from the boats, but sit still as the boats pass.

To utilise excess heat from the engine a series of heat exchanges have been installed so domestic hot water is created and stored in an insulated tank. Therefore, even after the boats have tied up for the night, we are using ‘free’ hot water to serve the galley, washing machine, three showers and all cabin washbasins. The central heating for the motorboat, again through heat exchangers, can be run from the main engine; naturally both boats are fully insulated to reduce heat loss.

The diesel fuel consumption per week is approximately 150 litres. This propels the two boats with a total weight of 45 tons and runs the electricity, heating and hot water for nine passengers and four crew.

Our boats cruise waterways for which they were designed, so with considerate navigation, we do not damage the flora and fauna that have made the waterways their home. Through the low emissions and efficient energy usage discussed above, we intend to help them thrive.

All drinking water is carried in integral tanks with a total capacity of approximately 300 gallons. They are filled from ‘water points’ provided by the navigation authorities and though we ensure they don’t run dry the boats can run with a full complement of guests for up to three days without filling up. The average daily water usage in a family home is around 200 gallons per person. We combat this by encouraging guests to be careful with water and showers are fitted rather than baths for efficient water use. To prevent wastage through unnecessarily washing towels, our policy is to change towels once during a seven-night cruise unless the guests request otherwise: guests infrequently request more changes.

Very importantly, for water conservation, the w.c.’s flush into holding tanks with water drawn from the waterway, so drinking water is not wasted on sewage disposal. The navigation authorities provide sewerage and refuse disposal points, but we are conscious to keep refuse to a minimum.

Our cruises are carefully planned to start and end within easy access of rail and coach stations. In spite of  the constant negative reports on the railways in the last few years, we are pleased to state that by implementing a well-planned courtesy transport initiative the vast majority of our guests travel effotlessly to and from the cruises by train. Our joining instructions direct guests to a mainline railway station and we then provide courtesy transport to / from the station using a local minibus service. Our aim is to increase our efforts to provide sustainable tourism, using public transport and then one minibus journey to / from the boats.

We greatly appreciate the importance of purchasing locally produced food and using local services. We use a local firms for courtesy transport and we certainly do not have our own vehicle following the boats around the country. As we cruise, we purchase from many different local suppliers, but we can be highly dependent on them. All to often we arrive in a village expecting to be able to buy supplies, to find that the village or farm shop has gone! This is often easily solved with ingenuity and a 'pioneering spirit', and adds to the adventure and fun. Using local produce is enormously appreciated by our guests. They take great pleasure in knowing they are sampling local Welsh lamb or being sent on a mission to find some Wiltshire Lardy Cake for afternoon tea. We realise that we too are part of the rural economy, and we aim to sustain it through considerate purchasing. We take great pleasure in purchasing our diesel from cargo carrying boats. They traditionally sold coal from the boats to houses along the canal, but have expanded to now act as mini tankers carrying diesel for sale too. Not only do we buy the fuel from an environmentally friendly distributor, we catch up on canal gossip too!

The innovative methods we use to lessen our effect on the environment need not be unique to boating holidays. Many of the environmental issues we address as a company can be applied to many ares of the rural tourist sector. We hope that by setting an example in our approach, we can inspire others to consider the wider implications of tourism on the environment and recognise that quality and sustainability can co-exist.