BQ2 Scotland Special Report

2 BUSINESS QUARTER SCOTLAND: Travel and Tourism

Welcome to my world Lord Thurso talks about his first year at the helm of VisitScotland

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TRAVEL AND TOURISM

LIVE.CO.UK Catch up with the winners tomorrow on our new look website www.bqlive.co.uk CONTENTS 4. WELCOME TO MY WORLD Lord Thurso reviews his first year heading Visit Scotland.

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8. REACH FOR THE SKIES Visit Scotland's Denise Hill explains how air links help Scotland's economy.

12. MAD FOR TRAD The campaign to promote Scotland's traditional music scene.

16. ALL IN IT TOGETHER Visit Scotland's Riddell Graham argues that partnerships are key to growing our tourism industry.

20. ONE FOR THE ROAD Beer and whisky enthusiasts like to see there their favourite tipples originate.

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WHETHER you’re strolling around the standing stones at Calanis or the Ring of Brodgar, or being battered by the wind on Culloden Moor, there’s something really magical about Scotland’s historic sites.

During the Year of History, Heritage & Archaeology in 2017, tourists and locals alike will have an added impetus to get out there and explore our nation’s past for themselves.

As we look back at our proud heritage, let’s not overlook the role that tourism has played in our history. Sir Walter Scott popularised travelling to Scotland during the 1800s and Queen Victoria put our land on the world stage during her numerous holidays north of the border.

Yet tourism isn’t just about looking back – it’s about looking forward too. In this special BQ2 supplement, we’ve teamed up with commercial partner VisitScotland to explore today’s thriving tourism industry and ask what tomorrow has in store.

Lord Thurso looks back over his first year as chair of the national tourism organisation and looks ahead to what the future holds for the industry. He also reminds us of the importance of tourism as an economic development tool, especially in rural areas.

Head of market strategy and development Denise Hill highlights the important role that Scotland’s air links play, not only in bringing visitors to our shores but also in helping our indigenous businesses to spread their wings and trade internationally. Riddell Graham, director of partnerships, points to the importance of collaborations, not just between different government agencies but also between the public and private sectors.

Music is at the very heart of our heritage and so it’s only fitting that we fire up the fiddle and explore how VisitScotland is encouraging visitors to make the most of Scotland’s flourishing traditional music scene. You don’t need to be a hipster with a beard to enjoy trad.

And if music is at the heart of our heritage then surely whisky must be at its very soul. Our national drink not only acts as an ambassador for us overseas but also draws millions of tourists each year to our distilleries and now breweries too, as Stuart Cassells, Kirsty Dunsmore and Sam Faircliff explain.

Peter Ranscombe, editor

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T’S been a busy year for Lord Thurso.

During his first 12 months as chair of VisitScotland, he’s travelled throughout the country, meeting a whole range of people working in the tourism industry, from the owners of some of the smallest bed and breakfasts all the way through to the staff at some of the country’s biggest resorts.

“One of the highlights has been getting out and meeting people,” explains Thurso.

“Tourism is unique because it touches every corner of Scotland and so it’s been fascinating to see how communities throughout the country are promoting what their areas have to offer.”

Thurso’s role as an ambassador for the tourism industry hasn’t just taken him around Scotland, but also further afield.

Last December, he was in Phoenix for the United States Tour Operators’ Association’s annual conference and marketplace;

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‘MORE PEOPLE, SPENDING MORE M O N E Y, I N MORE PLACES, MORE OFTEN’ Lord Thurso looks back over his first year as chair of VisitScotland, and considers the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead for the tourism industry

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VisitScotland sponsored the first session, giving the new chair a ten-minute slot to speak to 650 of the biggest buyers in America.

“It was a great opportunity,” Thurso says. “The global tourism market is so competitive – Scotland is out there competing against 200 other countries to entice visitors to come and spend their dollars, euros and pounds with us.

“And it’s great to see Scots rising to that challenge. The number of visitors coming to our country has gone up year-on-year, along with the amount of money they’re spending.

“Scotland is growing faster than any other part of the UK. When I took over as chair, a lot of people said that we faced an uphill struggle following the success of the ‘winning years’, when we hosted events such as the Commonwealth Games and the Ryder Cup. “But the figures show that the numbers have kept growing, which is testament to all the hard work that’s going on, not just at VisitScotland but also in tourism businesses throughout the country. VisitScotland can stimulate the ‘demand’ side by encouraging more tourists to come to Scotland, but it’s important to work on the ‘supply’ side too, which is the services tourists receive when they get here.

“My mantra is that I want to see ‘More people, spending more money, in more places, more often, to create more wealth and more jobs’. Everyone’s got to have a slogan these days,” he laughs.

Using tourism as an economic development tool is a topic that’s clearly close to Thurso’s heart. He’s particularly aware of the role that tourism plays in rural communities – he lives in Caithness and, when we speak, he’s watching from his window as scores of dry-suit-clad surfers ride the waves – despite the temperature outside being -3C, with snow lying on the ground.

He praises initiatives such as the North Coast 500, billed as the North of Scotland’s answer to California’s Route 66, which encourages visitors to explore the communities that lie along the Highland’s most-northerly roads. He wants to see more work with local communities and organisations such as Venture North, which

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“I do get worried sometimes about the lack of accommodation in some popular areas”

uses social media to promote the area.

Further afield, he salutes the innovations from communities to harness opportunities such as the reopening of the Borders Railway and the creation of Scotland’s first Dark Skies Park in Dumfries & Galloway.

He has been very impressed with how local communities are coming together to develop and promote their attractions, particularly online.

“Since 2008, the gross value that tourism adds to the Scottish economy has grown by 42%” he points out. “When you look at the whole supply chain, the number of people employed far outnumbers the 217,000 directly employed in tourism – that’s everyone from the accountants, lawyers and financial staff who serve tourism firms.

“Investing in the visitor economy is key – research shows that a job is created every time £64,000 is spent in the tourism industry. The numbers speak for themselves – 14.5 million people visited Scotland in 2015 and they contributed £11bn to our economy.

“These figures demonstrate why it’s so important for tourism to be taken seriously as an economic development tool, especially in rural areas. If a croft can offer accommodation to guests for, say, six months each year then that’s a great bit of diversification and can make the difference between having a hard life and having a comfortable and enjoyable life.”

Thurso’s role at VisitScotland is threefold: as well as fulfilling his ambassadorial function, he also chairs the board, which consists entirely of non-executive directors; and he leads the organisation’s strategic thinking, working with the executive team

to help the board set the direction of travel. He lists the appointment of nonexecutive director Caroline Roxburgh, one of the partners at accountancy firm PwC in Edinburgh, as another highlight of his first year.

“Caroline’s appointment means our board is now equally split 50% men and 50% women,” he says. “That’s an important milestone, but it also goes to show you can achieve gender balance without compromising on the quality of your directors.”

Thurso is best known for having sat in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords but, prior to entering politics, he enjoyed a varied career in the hospitality sector, cutting his teeth at the Savoy and working as reception manager at Claridge’s before becoming Europe’s youngest five-star hotel manager when he was appointed managing director of the Lancaster Hotel in Paris at the age of just 27.

He set up the Cliveden in Berkshire for Blakeney Hotels and became chief executive at first Granfel Holdings, the owner of East Sussex National Golf Course, and then the Champneys Luxury Spa Group. Not bad for someone whose work in hospitality began by washing dishes in a Caithness hotel during his school holidays from Eton.

Looking ahead, Thurso sees major opportunities on the horizon. “There are what I call ‘tactical’ opportunities – such as the lowering of air passenger duty (APD) or value-added tax (VAT) – which could make us a more attractive destination,” he says.

“But there are also strategic opportunities.

“Look at the new conference centre

being built at Aberdeen, look at the Victoria & Albert (V&A) Museum and the other developments in Dundee, look at the fact that Edinburgh is increasing its hotel capacity by 25% over the next 18 months or so, look at the fact that the Hydro in Glasgow is the second-largest venue of its kind in the world. These are extraordinarily high-class assets. There’s the opportunity for a step-change in visitor numbers.”

Developing innovative products that harness local strengths and packaging them to appeal to visitors is a proven formula, as shown by the Borders Railway, Dark Skies and North Coast 500. He wants to see more

communities working together to launch initiatives that will create jobs and generate wealth in their local areas.

Making the most of events is important too. He points to the arrival of the Solheim Cup in 2019 – in which Europe and the United States’ best female golfers will go head-to-head – and says it will be a chance once again to promote Scotland on the world stage. It’s also an opportunity to attract more events to our shores.

Challenges also lie ahead though. Thurso highlights the need to invest in high-quality visitor experiences and accommodation in hotspots, such as along the West Coast.

“I do get worried sometimes about the lack of accommodation in some popular areas,” he confesses. “And I also worry about a lack of digital capabilities, especially among smaller businesses – we need to harness new technology if we want to compete globally.”

Despite these issues, Thurso is optimistic that Scottish tourism is on the right track.

As the industry moves towards its 2020 vision to bring in an extra £1bn into the visitor economy, he looks at the surfers outside his window and predicts that tourism will continue riding on the crest of a wave. n

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“Air links are about much more than simply bringing more leisure passengers to Scotland”

R E A D Y

F O R

TA K E O F F Bringing new air links to Scotland and securing existing routes not only produces benefits for visitors but also for the wider economy explains Denise Hill, VisitScotland’s head of market strategy and development.

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ACH time that Denise Hill looks up to the sky and sees an airliner flying over the top of VisitScotland’s head office in Leith, the organisation’s head of market strategy and development could be forgiven for feeling a sense of satisfaction. Hill and her team, along with their partners in both the public and private sectors, work hard to make sure Scotland has the international air links that it needs to grow its visitor numbers.

“Air links are about much more than simply bringing more leisure passengers to Scotland,” Hill points out. “By having links to international destinations, we can help businesses from all sectors of the economy – whether it’s tourism or life sciences or energy – to export their products and services.

“The airlines are all interested in selling those important business-class seats at the front of the aircraft, as well as filling the leisure seats in the rest of the plane. If we can help to fill those seats then it makes routes more sustainable.”

Bringing airlines to Scotland is a process that can sometimes take years of planning.

It begins with VisitScotland sitting down with other partners from the public sector – including Highlands & Islands Enterprise, Scottish Development International and Scottish Enterprise – and from the private sector to look at the demand for routes to new locations. Scotland’s airports play a crucial role in this process as well – ensuring joined-up thinking across the public and private sector.

“We take a strategic approach to work out which countries and even which cities Scotland needs to be connected to,” Hill explains. “We consult research on forward travel trends and, of course, we also consult data indicating visitor numbers currently coming via connecting flights.

“Sometimes we’ll identify the need for a point-to-point route that will link Scotland directly to another country. But sometimes we’ll look at the need for Scotland to be connected to the world’s big hub airports, like Heathrow in London, Schiphol in Amsterdam or Charles de Gaulle in Paris.

“Having air links to these hubs allows Scottish travellers to make connections to destinations further afield. It also allows

flyers to connect to other airlines through their alliances and codeshare agreements.”

Hill’s horizons don’t end in Europe though. VisitScotland has been working with airlines to help forge connections that will link the nation to hubs in far-flung corners of the globe.

“Scotland has benefited for a number of years now from the Emirates flight from Glasgow, but in recent years we’ve been able to extend our links to the Middle East with a further two airlines – Etihad and Qatar,” Hill explains. “The links to the Middle East are important because they give travellers more options for connecting to fast-growing emerging economies like China and India, and also provide more-direct access to places like Australia.

“The new Finnair link between Scotland and Helsinki is also important for the same reasons. Travellers can save two or three hours when flying to the Far East by going ‘up-and-over’ if they connect in Finland.

“Having the direct flight to Charles de Gaulle not only opens up further links in Europe and the Middle East but also across to Latin America as well. These are all great

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“A lot of visitors want to see the dramatic scenery in the Highlands and so we work hard to get flights to our smaller airports too”

examples of how being connected to hubs can open more doors for businesses that want to export.” VisitScotland works with Scotland’s airlines and airports to help them flesh-out the business cases for new routes, providing facts and figures from the organisation’s extensive research to show where demand already exists for air links.

The tourism organisation adopts a “Team Scotland” approach by linking up with other government agencies to attend international air route conferences, so it can promote Scotland as a destination for airlines to consider. Once an airline is interested in a route then VisitScotland can start to develop ideas for a marketing strategy that will help to promote the link. This can include advertising, joint public relations activity and also developing the airline’s “product”. “The ‘product’ in this case is the holiday that the airline’s vacation arm can offer to customers,” Hill explains. “We want to make sure that those packages are as

attractive as possible.

“We can also help the airlines to make connections to the business community.

The airlines want to fill up their businessclass seats and so we can help them to reach those audiences, with the help of the enterprise agencies.”

She adds that businesses in Scotland can really support such routes by booking their travel through these new and established connections.

Over the past year, the organisation has worked with 22 airlines, which has resulted in a further 12 routes being launched.

Together, those air links mean that an additional 170,000 seats have been created on flights into Scotland.

The prize for bringing in new airlines is significant for Scottish tourism. Research on just three of the new flights from Chicago, Doha and Hailfax showed a net economic impact of £17m.

“That’s when all the work starts to get

exciting – when you see the capacity you’re building so you can both grow the number of inbound tourists coming to Scotland but also the opportunities for wider economic development through exports,” Hill says.

“That connectivity is in place, so there’s capacity for growth.

“It can be a long and complicated business. Sometimes it can take literally years to identify a route that doesn’t exist and then work with partners to push the case for Scotland and show how demand is growing and that there’s a genuine business opportunity for an airline to serve Scotland.

“During 2016, we saw the start of the new Delta Air Lines service between JFK in New York and Edinburgh. It was also exciting to see Air Canada Rouge add a route from Toronto to Glasgow.

“Air Canada Rouge already had a route from Edinburgh to Toronto, which demonstrates that part of our job involves extending relationships with existing airlines,

rather than simply chasing after new airlines.”

Dutch airline KLM’s decision to open a service between Dalcross airport at Inverness and Schiphol in Amsterdam was another highlight of the year. “It’s not all about the Central Belt,” Hill points out.

“A lot of visitors want to see the dramatic scenery in the Highlands and so we work hard to get flights to our smaller airports too. Much of our work centres on the big population centres in the Central Belt and the North-East, so it’s good when we can bring airlines to places like Inverness.

“The KLM connection is very important because it gives Highlanders the opportunity to access a major hub airport in the Netherlands. KLM has recently announced that it will be flying twice a day now to Inverness, which is a great step forward.”

Hill is also excited about the first direct flight between Scotland and South Korea, which links Glasgow with Seoul. “It’s a small

service, but it’s growing,” she says.

Someone who is especially pleased with the service to Seoul is Mike Cantlay, the former chair of VisitScotland, who was involved in the very early stages of negotiations to bring the route to Scotland.

He has underlined the air link as one of the highlights of his time in office.

Hill is keen to build on the links with the Far East that come through the South Korea route and the hub connections through the three Middle Eastern airlines. She eventually wants to see a direct flight from Scotland to China.

“We’re looking at the growth in the number of visitors who are coming to Scotland from China,” she says. “At this point in time, they’re all travelling in-directly to get to Scotland.

“But the number of people travelling between Scotland and China is growing all the time and the business case for a direct route is growing. It’ll come as no surprise

and there’s a great deal of work going on through us and our partners to develop that business case and to secure the first direct flight.”

Flying in the opposite direction, Hill would also like to see further routes across the Pond. “WestJet introduced a service between Halifax in Nova Scotia in Canada to Glasgow in 2015,” she says.

“It’s very interesting to see those low-cost airlines starting to fly across the Atlantic and for WestJet to pick Glasgow as one of its first stopping points in Europe. We hope that Scotland will be able to continue to capture a greater share of the low-cost travel market between North America and Europe and we’re working hard to do that.

“It’s always exciting to talk about new routes, but it’s just as important to promote the routes that we already have,” Hill adds.

“We’ve worked very hard to build-up this connectivity and so we need to continue supporting it to make it sustainable.” n

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ENTION the theme for the “Year of History, Heritage and Archaeology” to most visitors and they’ll begin to imagine the historical sites and epic battles that shaped Scotland’s past. From the Callanish Stones to Skara Brae and the battlefields of Bannockburn and Culloden, Scotland’s landscape is steeped in the history of her people.

Yet our nation’s proud history isn’t simply forged in claymores and broadswords – music plays a crucial role in Scotland’s heritage. There’s far more to Scottish traditional music than the bagpipes and chanter though; listen to a Shetlander playing a fiddle or Julie Fowlis singing the Gaelic songs of her beloved Hebrides and the hairs are almost guaranteed to stand-up on the back of your neck.

Tune into Another Country or Travelling Folk on BBC Radio Scotland or The Folk Show with Mark Radcliffe on BBC Radio 2 and it’s impossible to escape the influence of Scottish musicians. Traditional music didn’t end in the black-and-white era of The White Heather Club – it’s alive and well and thriving throughout Scotland.

As part of the Year of History, Heritage and Archaeology, VisitScotland has launched a marketing campaign to encourage “millennial” Scots – people who were born in the late seventies and early eighties and who came of age around the time of the millennium – to engage with traditional music and to travel to the events and festivals taking place across the country to experience the vibe and energy that this music scene offers.

“Of all aspects of our rich Scottish heritage, I think it must truly be in our music that we see the true spirit of Scotland come to life,” explains Malcolm Roughead, chief executive at VisitScotland.

“Scotland is home to a fantastic array of music festivals that provides a platform for our exciting and evolving traditional music scene. We want to share this incredible part of our culture with our young people and show the changing face of traditional music, in the Year of History, Heritage and

Making a noise for trad music Archaeology.

“This year, Scotland will celebrate both our tangible and intangible heritage – everything from our buildings and archaeological sites to our diverse stories, traditions and culture – of which our traditional music is a key part. With millennial Scots already spending £267m each year travelling in Scotland, there is

huge market potential for our traditional music events to tap into.”

Between 2013 and 2015 there were an average of 177,000 trips each year from across the UK to music festivals in Scotland, which together were worth £65m to the economy.

Over the same period, an average of 402,000 trips were made to music concerts each year, generating a combined £117m.

Celebrating Scotland’s heritage is about so much more than battlefields and archaeological digs, with VisitScotland launching a marketing campaign to promote our nation’s vibrant traditional music scene

“Scotland is a connected country,” explains Simon Thoumire, creative director at Hands Up for Trad, a project that was launched in 2002 to promote Scottish traditional music. “People, young and old, understand our culture and feel close to it.

In our bones, we all understand trad music and its amazing energy and we all know how to dance a Dashing White Sergeant.

“We welcome this campaign from VisitScotland. Trad music is the spine of Scotland and it is an amazing tool to connect our young people with our culture and heritage.”

One of the jewels in the crown of Scotland’s traditional music scene is Celtic Connections, the 18-day festival that runs in Glasgow from the end of January to the

start of February. This year’s festival brought together 2,375 artists from 50 countries, playing 800 hours of music at 300 gigs in 20 venues.

More than 110,000 people attended this year’s Celtic Connections, the tenth year in a row that the festival has smashed through the 100,000-milestone figure. The gathering will mark its silver anniversary next year

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Get your trad on

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“I see young talent grabbing the spotlight with both hands”

[2018] and its artistic director, Donald Shaw, is aiming to hold at least one show at the city’s Hydro arena, the largest entertainment venue in Scotland, with seats for 12,000 music fans.

In excess of 80% of its events were sold out this year, with the tally of 176 full houses rising by 69 over the previous year, demonstrating the enduring popularity of Scottish traditional music.

“When I look at Scotland’s trad music scene, I see young talent grabbing the spotlight with both hands,” says Alan Morrison, head of music at Creative Scotland. “We have fantastic young singers, fiddlers, accordionists, pipers and instrumentalists of every type and all of them are leading our cultural heritage towards a bright future.

“Creative Scotland is committed to funding the next generation of trad culture, ensuring that our young musicians get the space to perform at festivals here and abroad, step up to the next level by recording their debut album and receive opportunities to collaborate with established names from the folk sector.

“It’s only a matter of time before young gig-going audiences realise

that their peers on the trad scene are among the coolest and most exciting musicians that this country has to offer.”

Ruairidh Graham, the drummer from Isle of Skye-based band Niteworks, adds: “Scotland has experienced a sea change in musical culture, and the lead on this has undoubtedly been the trad and folk scene.

“In our lifetimes, we have been fortunate to have witnessed the evolution of the trad music scene from small, niche corners, to being front and centre of the country’s musical landscape. This has had a huge impact, particularly amongst a young generation of musicians who have gained the confidence to take pride in their musical heritage, and to experiment with it in various ways.

“We are fully supportive of VisitScotland’s campaign to recognise the value that traditional music adds to Scotland, and to promote the variety of amazing festivals dotted around that are supporting artists and musicians, young and old, to revel in our shared musical heritage.”

Niteworks has provided the electronic-Celtic fusion soundtrack for a promotional film for the campaign, which will run across social media platforms such as Facebook, Spotify and Unruly. Supporters of the campaign include BBC Alba, the broadcaster’s Gaelic-language television channel.

VisitScotland highlights the continued growth of the traditional music scene, with bands such as Manran, Niteworks, The Peatbog Faeries, Skerryvore, Skippinish and Treacherous Orchestra attracting a growing audience of young Scots. The agency points to the influence of the late composer Martyn Bennett, the inspiration behind so many of Scotland’s young artists, who provided the Celtic fusion soundtrack for stunt cyclist Danny MacAskill’s film The Ridge, which has been viewed almost 50 million times on video sharing website Youtube, n To find out more about the traditional music marketing campaign, go to www.visitscotland.com/trad-music-festivals

TRADFEST – April – Edinburgh MULL MUSIC FESTIVAL – April SHETLAND FOLK FESTIVAL – April/May – Lerwick KNOCKENGORROCH WORLD CEILIDH – May – Castle Douglas, Dumfries & Galloway ORKNEY FOLK FESTIVAL – May – Orkney, Stromness Islay Festival of Music & Malt – May/June OBAN LIVE – June – Oban, Argyll EDEN FESTIVAL – June – Dumfries and Galloway KEITH MUSIC FESTIVAL – June - Keith, Aberdeenshire FÈIS AN EILEIN – July/August – Sleat, Skye TIREE MUSIC FESTIVAL – July – Tiree, Hebrides BUTEFEST – July – Rothesay, Argyll STONEHAVEN FOLK FESTIVAL – July – Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire HEBRIDEAN CELTIC FESTIVAL – July – Stornoway, Hebrides BELLADRUM TARTAN HEART FESTIVAL – August – Beauly, Inverness PIPING LIVE! - August – Glasgow SKYE LIVE – September – Portree, Skye BLAS FESTIVAL – September – Highlands BOWFEST – September – Inveraray, Argyll JURA MUSIC FESTIVAL – September – Jura, Hebrides

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“VisitScotland knows that it cannot deliver its agenda on its own – it needs that partnership working,” Graham explains.

“Tourism growth will not be delivered

by VisitScotland alone – it has to rely on everyone working together.

“We don’t own any of the products or experiences that the visitor interacts with, so we rely on influencing partners and working with them to ensure that the visitor gets the best experience at the end of the day. We’re encouraging people to work together collaboratively and to use the research and key consumer trends that we identify.”

Partnerships have always played a crucial role in Graham’s career. After graduating from the University of Edinburgh with a degree in ecological sciences, he returned to his native Borders and joined the local council as an assistant tourist officer before rising through the ranks to become chief executive of the Scottish Borders Tourist Board, a post he held from 1996 to 2005.

While his work with both the local council and the tourist board involved plenty of partnerships, his specialism in the field really took off when he moved to

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ARTNERSHIPS are at the very heart of VisitScotland’s activities. Whether it’s working with individual businesses or liaising with other public bodies, the national tourism organisation has a vast network of links that are designed to help the industry to grow.

The person at the heart of this swirling dance is Riddell Graham, the organisation’s director of partnerships. He and his team are charged with the task of working with companies and organisations not just within the tourism industry but also in the wider economy and civic life.

Take your partners please Riddell Graham, director of partnerships at VisitScotland, explains why working together with companies and organisations holds the key to helping the nation’s tourism industry to grow

VisitScotland in 2005 as director of strategy, partnership and communication, before taking up his current role in 2010.

“It’s all about relationships with people,” Graham says. “People ask me what my relationship is like with Highlands & Islands Enterprise, for example, but I explain that I don’t have a relationship with Highlands & Islands Enterprise, I have a relationship with the people at Highlands & Islands Enterprise.

“Having that personal relationship with an individual in an organisation is very important because you’re not starting from scratch each time you call or visit. You know the right person to speak to.

“It’s the same for our quality assessors, who go out to give accommodation and visitor attractions their star ratings. Our team sometimes has to give quite difficult feedback to the owners or managers of properties about what they need to do to improve their product or service or performance. They can do that because they are skilled and experienced and have

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those personal relationships with our customers.

“My team of regional directors has that same kind of personal relationship with Members of Parliament and Members of the Scottish Parliament. They can talk to MPs and MSPs about the importance of tourism in their areas, while politicians can also ask questions about any issues that have been raised with them.”

VisitScotland’s partnerships span a whole range of organisations. In the public sector, it works with the Scottish Government and many of its agencies, including Forestry Commission Scotland, Skills Development Scotland, Transport Scotland and the economic development bodies, Highlands & Islands Enterprise and Scottish Enterprise.

In the private sector, the agency has partnerships with big players such as airlines,

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“We need to use those partnerships so we can handle those vast amounts of information”

hotel chains and transport providers, and also with the Scottish Tourism Alliance (STA), the trade body that represents businesses working in the industry. “It really helps to have STA because it offers a strong voice for the industry,” Graham says.

Other relationships are on a one-to-one basis, such as with the 6,000 businesses that use VisitScotland’s quality assurance scheme or the 13,000 visitor attractions, accommodation providers and other businesses that provide information for the organisation’s website.

In the wider business community, VisitScotland also has relationships with the Federation of Small Businesses, the Institute of Directors, the Scottish Chambers of Commerce and the Scottish Council for Development & Industry. Graham points out that it’s crucial to highlight the importance of tourism to those working in other industries. Visitors spend £12bn a year in Scotland and the tourism industry contributes £6bn to our nation’s economy, accounting for around 5% of our gross domestic product.

At a local level, the organisation also forms partnerships with local councils, local tourism groups and destination organisations.

“I’ve recently visited more than 20 out of Scotland’s 32 local authorities to talk to them about VisitScotland’s latest work,” Graham says. “Each local council puts a different emphasis on tourism, depending on where they are located in the country and what resources they have in their area, be they natural or historic.

“I laid down the challenge to each local council, asking what it would do to celebrate the Year of History, Heritage and Archaeology during 2017. It doesn’t necessarily mean holding an event – I want them to think about the stories that they

want to tell from their area and how they can supply content for the VisitScotland website to help get those stories out there.”

The Year of History, Heritage and Archaeology may have only just begun, but Graham is already getting excited about 2018’s theme – the Year of Young People. Next year’s theme offers all sorts of opportunities for further partnerships.

“The themed years are a great example of how partnerships can work by getting people to rally round a cause,” he says.

“That’s galvanised a lot of relationships that may not have happened if the themed years hadn’t come into play.

“Thinking back to the Year of Natural Scotland, we had a good relationship with Scottish Natural Heritage because it recognised the importance of tourism.

That was one of our most-successful years in getting the industry – individual bed and breakfasts, self-catering providers and attractions – to see an opportunity, to work together with each other and to work together with us and SNH. “We also worked with Calmac and Scotrail to give people free tickets to explore the countryside and the islands.

It spun out partnerships that otherwise wouldn’t have happened. Our job with the themed years is to get our partners to recognise the opportunities that those themed years will bring.”

Graham also highlights the way in which partnerships have grown around the “Spirit of Scotland” marketing campaign, which VisitScotland launched last year to create a social movement to help promote Scotland on a global stage. The campaign included a partnership with the Family Holiday Association, which led to hundreds of poorer families being given free holidays.

Looking ahead, Graham thinks partnerships will play an important role in

two of the major trends that will shape the future of the tourism industry in Scotland – the use of data alongside the quality assurance scheme and the role for the traditional tourist information centres.

“Our quality assurance schemes have been running since 1985 and there’s still a valuable place for them,” explains Graham.

“There are now also huge amounts of data available online about what visitors think about tourist attractions, accommodation providers and other businesses.

“We’re working with companies like Google and Skyscanner to understand how we can use both our quality assurance schemes and the broader spread of data surrounding visitor reviews. We need to use those partnerships so we can handle those vast amounts of information.

“We’ve had tourist information centres in Scotland for as long as anyone can remember. But visitors are now getting information in different ways, especially online through their mobile phones and tablets. Many visitors don’t want to be dependent anymore on going to a specific tourist information centre that may or may not be open at the time that they want to access it. Those visitors are moving away from a bricks-and-mortar approach to getting information when and where they want it, and so our online services are becoming more important than ever.

“Other visitors still want to speak to a human being face-to-face and ask questions and get recommendations. So, we’re forming partnerships with many bed and breakfasts, guest houses, hotels and visitor attractions, which in effect are becoming like mini tourist information centres in their areas.

“But I think there will always be a place for traditional visitor information centres in certain key locations, especially for overseas visitors.” n

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Visitors are toasting Scotland’s success Scotland’s distilleries and breweries export their drinks around the world, but many also value the importance of welcoming guests into their visitor centres so they can learn more about their favourite tipples

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HE numbers surrounding the Scotch whisky industry are simply staggering. Nearly £4bn-worth of Scotland’s national drink is sold around the world each year, with some 1.16 billion bottles leaving our shores to slake the thirst of drinkers overseas – that’s 34 bottles very second.

Once aficionados have sampled the “water of life”, naturally the next step is for them to come to Scotland to see how the magic amber liquid is created. Making a pilgrimage to visit the distillery where your favourite dram was made has become a rite of passage for fans.

Tourism is playing an increasingly important role in the life of the whisky industry. A record 1.6 million visitors toured around Scotland’s distilleries in 2015, up 20% during the previous five years.

The largest proportion of those visitors came from Scotland, followed by the rest

of the UK. In terms of overseas tourists, German visitors accounted for the biggest share, with American and French fans not far behind.

Together, those visits spent nearly £50m on tours and souvenirs from the distilleries’ gift shops, spending an average of £25 a head. The combined spending of whisky tourists has almost doubled since 2010.

“Scotch Whisky distilleries offer highquality and unique opportunities to visit the homes of some of Scotland’s most famous brands,” explains Julie Hesketh-Laird, acting chief executive at the Scotch Whisky Association, the industry’s trade body. “This brings important benefits to the wider rural economy, as distillery visitors will also then be staying at the local bed and breakfast, visiting a local pub or café, or buying souvenirs of their stay in Scotland.”

One man who knows the importance

of tourism to the whisky industry is Stuart Cassells, general manager of the Famous Grouse Experience visitors’ centre at Glenturret distillery near Crieff in Perthshire.

The distillery is Scotland’s oldest, tracing its roots back to 1775, and the visitors’ centre is the nation’s most-visited whisky-related tourist attraction, holding five stars under VisitScotland’s quality assurance scheme.

“Glenturret was the pioneer of whisky tourism and I feel we should try to keep Glenturret as the flagship for whisky tourism and attractions,” explains Cassells, who founded the Red Hot Chilli Pipers, one of Scotland’s most success bands, before joining Famous Grouse-owner Edrington after taking part in the Saltire Fellowship scheme.

“We’re the site where the Famous Grouse has a consumer touch-point. We need to offer a high level of customer service as a

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flagship visitor attraction.

“In terms of how we make whisky, Glenturret is unique and there’s a great story there to tell. People who come here want to learn about the whisky we make.”

The production process at Glenturret is very labour-intensive. Processes that are automated at other, larger distilleries are still carried out by hand.

As well as its five-star rating from VisitScotland, the distillery has also received certificates of excellence from travel website TripAdvisor for two years on the trot and was named as the “visitor experience of the year” in 2015 by the Association of Scottish Visitor Attractions.

It’s not just distilleries that value the role

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that visitors play. The number of breweries in Scotland has passed the 100-mark for the first time in a century, stimulated by the introduction of small brewers’ duty relief by the-then Chancellor, Gordon Brown, back in 2002. Kirsty Dunsmore – who founded the Edinburgh Beer Factory with her father, John, and his wife, Lynne – always knew that hosting brewery tours would be an important part of setting up their business.

The site they picked at Bankhead is easily accessible via bus or tram and commuters on the Edinburgh-to-Glasgow train cannot help but see its neon sign as they swish past on their way to or from work.

Tours of the modern stainless steel brewery not only allow fans to find out

where the beer is made, but also allows Dunsmore and her team to tell them the story behind their Paolozzi lager. The drink is named after Leith-born artist Eduardo Paolozzi, acknowledge as the founding father of the Pop Art movement, and epitomises the Dunsmores’ desire to create a brand that was distinctively Scottish but also fresh and modern, veering away from the use of tartan and bagpipes.

“The tours have been so popular that we’re preparing to open a visitors’ centre this year,” explains Dunsmore, whose father is a former chief executive of Scottish & Newcastle and Tennent’s-owner C&C Group.

“It’s a great industrial setting, which works well for the Scotland that we’re promoting –

innovation and creativity.”

“We wanted the brewery to be a destination, somewhere that people could come and visit. Being next to the tram line and the Glasgow-Edinburgh train line helps to raise awareness, but the site also has great transport links.”

New breweries aren’t the only businesses that recognise the importance of tourism either. The Cairngorm brewery in Aviemore hosts two tours each day, rising to up to four during the high summer season, with the site acting as a popular stop-off point for many coach parties. Visitors are taken on a tour and afterwards they can sample beers in the shop.

“The building that’s now the shop and

visitors’ centre used to be the warehouse and cask washing area,” explains Sam Faircliff, managing director at the brewery. “That was before we built the larger building next door.” The popularity of the Cairngorm brewery with visitors demonstrates the importance of food and drink tourism, especially in rural areas. The company’s brand and its beers are strongly-rooted in the Highlands and have a distinct sense of place. Many of the firm’s beers are named after the wildlife in the Cairngorms, including Autumn Nuts, a full-bodied ruby red ale, with the brewery making a donation from its sales to the Scottish Wildlife Trust’s red squirrel project. Donations from sales of Caillie and Wild Cat also go to charity.

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The company took over the running of the Winking Owl pub in Aviemore about two years ago and has pushed it from 43rd to first in the TripAdvisor rankings for the village. The bar acts as a shop window for the brewery’s beers in the local area and also picked up the “Taste Our Best” accreditation from VisitScotland in recognition of its work with seasonal, local ingredients.

Last year the firm teamed up with Cobbs, a bakery, café and hotel operator, to buy the Loch Ness Beer brand from administrators. “The Loch Ness brand is so well known globally that it will be a great opportunity for the export market as well as here at home,” says Faircliff. n

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A spirited success A year on from the launch of the Spirit of Scotland campaign, Helen Campbell, VisitScotland’s head of global brand and marketing communications, looks back on the successes so far for the organisation’s first global marketing drive

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TANDING on the Isle of Skye as the camera crew filmed the footage for one of VisitScotland’s atmospheric adverts, Helen Campbell was in for a treat. The night’s sky was brought to life by the aurora borealis, the magical northern lights that appear when charged particles from the Sun interact with the Earth’s magnetic field.

Campbell could feel that thrill going up the back of her neck as she watched the array of shapes and colours overhead.

That intangible sensation of delight is at the heart of VisitScotland’s first global marketing campaign, the “Spirit of Scotland”, which was launched just over a year ago.

The campaign builds on the sensation that visitors feel when they travel to Scotland. It’s a combination of the welcome they receive, the wonder they feel when they see our nation’s natural beauty and the thrill they enjoy when they get to take part in a ceilidh for the first time or listen to the trill of a fiddle.

That intangible feeling was definitely present for Campbell when she was on filming duty on Skye. “It was the first time I’d seen the northern lights and I’d wanted to see them for years,” explains the organisation’s head of global brand and marketing communications.

“I think you can certainly feel the spirit of Scotland on the islands. Each one has its own feeling and its own magic.”

Taking that intangible feeling and turning it into the organisation’s first global marketing campaign was no mean feat.

VisitScotland wanted to make the Spirit of Scotland more than just a marketing tool – it wanted to create a social movement behind which fans of Scotland at both home and abroad could muster.

The £4.25m campaign was launched on 10 February 2016 at Edinburgh Castle, with stunt cyclist Danny MacAskill riding along a giant set of letters that spelt “#ScotSpirit”, the slogan at the centre of the campaign.

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“As well as sparking a social movement to support Scotland, the campaign also aimed to widen the scope of tourism so that it could be enjoyed by poorer members of society and not just those who can afford to take a holiday”

Using the hashtag on social media gave Scots and their friends a quick and easy way of showing their support for the campaign and the wider tourism industry, including selfie-queen Nicola Sturgeon, the First Minister.

Looking back at the first year of the campaign, Campbell is clearly delighted.

“The figures speak for themselves,” she says. “#ScotSpirit has been used more than 300,000 times in the first year. On the day that we launched the campaign, it was the second-highest trending hashtag on Twitter in the UK and among the 20 highest trending globally – that’s an amazing result.

“But the campaign has been about much more than just the launch. The number of people following VisitScotland’s Facebook and Twitter has risen by more than 50% and our Instagram followers are up by nearly 200%.

“More than 66 million people globally have watched our special ‘Spirit’ films and nearly half of the 45 to 54 year olds who have seen the videos say that they’re now more likely to book a visit to Scotland. The number of people signing up for our email newsletters has also risen by 80% to 2.8 million.”

Generating a buzz on social media is one thing, but have all those clicks and posts and tweets turned into more pounds in the till for the tourism industry? “The relaunched visitscotland.com website has seen a 15% rise in visitor numbers and that’s led to £573m-worth of referrals to tourism businesses,” replies Campbell.

“Marketing activity in 2016 delivered a net impact of £58.4m for the Scottish economy.

These are real, tangible results.”

Data from the International Passenger Survey shows that the number of overseas visitors to Scotland increased by 4.5% year-

on-year between July and September and the amount of money they spent rose by 13.8%. Over the same period, the number of visitors from North America – the area that benefited from the highest level of campaign investment outside the UK – jumped by 36% year-on-year, with their expenditure climbing by 57%, representing the largest volume of trips by American and Canadian visitors to Scotland since 2006.

The success of the Spirit of Scotland campaign isn’t just being measured in its monetary value though. As well as sparking a social movement to support Scotland, the campaign also aimed to widen the scope of tourism so that it could be enjoyed by poorer members of society and not just those who can afford to take a holiday.

The campaign teamed up with the Family Holiday Association to help 250 families from disadvantaged backgrounds receive relaxing breaks. More than 30 tourism businesses donated free accommodation, activities and transport.

One of the secrets to the success of the spirit campaign has been the number of partnerships that VisitScotland has forged.

“We teamed up with a lot of the online travel agencies (OTAs) like Booking.com, Google and Trip Advisor,” Campbell explains.

“These OTAs play a really important role. It’s not just about customers who are looking to book a trip but also about potential customers who are looking for inspiration.

“We worked with these websites to supply them with content, so they now have accurate and engaging information about Scotland. It’s the same kind of highquality content that we have on our own website.

“The amount of data that’s available to us now is simply vast. We can understand the

search terms that visitors are using in much greater detail and we can tailor our content accordingly.

“It’s the same with our email newsletters.

Those are becoming so much more popular now because we can tailor the content to suit the reader, giving them more of the information that they want.”

During the first year of the campaign, an extra 3,500 users joined VisitScotland’s online community. Almost 3,000 people created bespoke itineraries on the organisation’s website.

Campbell points to the amount of time the organisation spent engaging with tourism businesses before the launch of the campaign as one of the reasons for its success. Figures show that seven out of ten companies working in the tourism industry recognised the hashtag and its meaning.

“I think that tourism companies are now realising just how powerful the internet can be when it comes to marketing their business,” she adds. “It’s no longer enough to just have a static webpage that advertises your accommodation or visitor attraction – visitors want to be able to read reviews, check availability and book online.”

Looking ahead to the Year of History, Heritage and Archaeology – the current themed year – Campbell recognises the vast array of opportunities for tourism businesses to use the spirit campaign to promote their products and services. “This year’s theme really is a gift that ties in so well with the campaign,” she says.

“The Spirit of Scotland campaign is all about the welcome people get, the interactions that they have with people while they’re here and the thrill they get when they find out what makes Scotland special. It’s all about bringing that spirit to life for visitors.” n

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“Tourism is unique because it touches every corner of Scotland and so it’s been fascinating to see how communities throughout the country are promoting what their areas have to offer.”