China offers economic boost for Argyll
Sir,
Last week BID4Oban attended Argyll Enterprise Week at the Tourism Building on Success day.
There was some fantastic information shared on how Oban and Argyll is being marketed and the various opportunities that are coming our way for next year.
Argyll and the Isles Tourism Cooperative hosted the event.
The highly successful Mark Beaumont, of cycling around the world in 80 days – or, in his case, 78 days – campaign promoting Wild About Argyll, has raised the profile of the area and we can look forward to even more visitors next year, in particular from the cycling community.
The most inspiring presentation was from Gordon Campbell Gray of Campbell Gray Hotels. He spoke passionately about his worldwide experience and observations from his various businesses. He is currently involved in building a new hotel, The Machrie on Islay. He concentrated on providing exceptional levels of customer service and recruitment in the current climate where many businesses are suffering staff shortages during the busy season.
Those businesses that attended will have come away with some food for thought in terms of retention of staff and ideas to recruit in a difficult market.
Following on from the tourism day, we attended the China business summit at the Corran Halls which was hosted by Brendan O’ Hara, Argyll and Bute MP. This was primarily aimed at producers who want to do business in the Chinese markets.
You may wonder what BID4Oban was doing there. Well, in the coming years the growth of Chinese tourism for our area could be immense. It is a growing market with many younger people visiting from this far-off land.
In attendance were the China-Britain Business Council, Scottish Development International and Bank of China (UK) Ltd.
There was an entertaining presentation from Ewan MacKintosh of Scottish Sea Farms (SSF) where he shared his business’s experiences in exporting to China. SSF sends in excess of 600 tonnes of salmon every year to China directly from their site at Shian near Oban.
BID4Oban will now be investigating various ways in how we can help and support AITC build links with the Chinese tourist market to ensure Oban and Lorn are well represented. Andrew Spence,
Chief executive, BID4Oban.