Tourism boost is most welcome
My family and I recently returned from our annual holiday to the west coast islands of Coll and Tiree.
We are very familiar with this part of our beautiful country but it was fantastic to experience the area in such excellent weather conditions.
The combination of strong sunlight and clear skies meant the turquoise waters and the golden sands were even more stunning.
The islands were busy with visitors and it was good to see one of the Scottish Government’s policy initiatives - Road Equivalent Tariff - having such a positive effect through reduced ferry fares.
Having seen all of this beneficial activity, I wasn’t at all surprised to see that overseas visitor numbers to Scotland had increased to their highest ever level.
Visitor numbers increased by 16.9 per cent to 3.2 million and visitor expenditure had risen by 23 per cent to £2.3 billion.
Across the UK visitor numbers increased by just one per cent.
These are outstanding levels of tourism activity and are a great credit to the very effective people that promote Scotland at our tourism agency VisitScotland.
In the last few years, VisitScotland has taken the difficult decision to change how it spends the resources allocated to it.
Instead of investing in a very large network of tourist offices around the country – which are attracting fewer and fewer people – they have invested in the promotion of Scotland by digital means.
These bright and buoyant campaign initiatives have reached a very wide audience around the world leading to the presentation of more information and images about Scotland reaching more people. And as we all know some of those images are truly breathtaking.
Combining this digital innovation and leadership with the year-long focus we have on certain themes – this year is the Year of Young People – is producing a powerful formula to attract many people to our country.
It was all therefore a bit laughable to hear a Conservative MSP recently criticise VisitScotland for using images of Scotland such as the Queensferry Crossing and the baby box by suggesting these were nationalist symbols being promoted by a government agency.
It truly is a comment of ludicrous character that suggests a tourism agency that knows what it is doing is involved in some sort of political campaign by using attractive images of a modern Scotland.
It does illustrate how desperate the Conservatives are to attack anything that leads to positive benefit for Scotland.
As we proceed through the summer, there are many great events locally to attract visitors.
We attended the reenactment by the Soldiers of Killiecrankie last weekend which was a hugely informative presentation of landmark moments in our history.
This weekend the agricultural community comes together for the Perth Show followed the next weekend by the Aberfeldy Show and Games.
And the sequence of Highland games go on at Kinloch Rannoch, Strathardle, Birnam, Blairgowrie and Pitlochry.
It is a busy summer but these events – run by local volunteers – are a great advert for bringing people to Scotland. Events like the Blairgowrie Highland Games bring people to the area