Distillery’s award
OBAN Distillery has been recognised for providing the Best Visitor Experience in the country following a national awards competition.
OBAN Distillery has been recognised as the Best Visitor Experience in Scotland.
The centre won the Association of Scottish Visitor Attractions (ASVA) award earlier this month, beating fellow finalists Blair Castle and Cardhu Distillery.
Tourist attractions from all over the country entered the competition, all of which were inspected to check if they were delivering what was promised.
Speaking about the achievement, Carol Bennett, brand home manager at Oban Distillery, said: ‘We are absolutely delighted to have won this prestigious award.
‘Oban Distillery Visitor Centre is a five-star graded visitor attraction and as such we aspire to deliver a five-star visitor experience.
‘One of the principal reasons for our success is that we don’t stand still. Whether improving our bar area, developing new distillery-only bottlings or introducing new interactive panels, we are always striving to make things better for our customers.
‘Comments left on review sites such as TripAdvisor suggest that our efforts are really paying off, with visitors often talking about our fantastic staff and the great value for money that we offer.
‘We feel that we are improving and developing on an on-going basis and have many more exciting future plans which we hope to deliver over the coming years.’
Oban Distillery, which has recently introduced a ‘hot toddy’ on its menu, is keen to promote its bar, where people can sit and have a drink.
‘You pay your money and you get a drink,’ Stuart Calder said. ‘We do a couple of cocktails that we didn’t do last year – and we are doing a hot toddy.
‘We are looking to expand the use of the bar.’
Commenting on Oban Distillery’s win, chairman of the judges Bob Downie said: ‘Oban Distillery is a very well thought through and executed visitor experience, delivered by enthusiastic staff who are clearly very passionate about this classic malt. The attention to detail throughout the tour was first class.’