SPIRIT OF WELCOME

As Scotland’s distillery visitor centres slowly reopen it’s up to UK-based whisky lovers and staycationers to help them get back on their feet, says Blair Bowman

Distillery visitor centres are finally opening up again, and it's down to us to help them back on their feet

It has been a tough time for the whisky industry, not least for distilleries with visitor centres. Being closed during the all-important summer and Christmas seasons, as well as having to endure a phased socially distanced reopening, sometimes without the ubiquitous dram at the end of a tour due to licensing and local restrictions, has been trying. Thankfully, these trials and tribulations have not stopped some significant whisky tourism investment projects from launching, nor have they dampened distillery owners’ desire to welcome visitors to Scotland.

‘Scotch whisky, and the allure of learning more about Scotland’s national drink, is a huge draw for tourists who would usually be flocking to Scotland,’ says Graeme Littlejohn, directory of strategy and communications at the Scotch Whisky Association (SWA). ‘In 2019, over 2.1 million visits were made to Scotch whisky distilleries with more than two thirds of those made by international visitors.’ What’s more, hundreds of millions of pounds have been invested in recent years to create world-class distillery visitor centres.

This level of investment in whisky tourism is exciting to see. Diageo’s soon to open Johnnie Walker Princes Street Experience is a case in point as Barbara Smith, managing director of Diageo Scotland Brand Homes, explains: ‘Johnnie Walker Princes Street will be the centrepiece of our £185m investment into Scottish whisky tourism when it opens later this year.’

This flagship experience in Edinburgh will undoubtedly be a massive draw for visitors, in the same way that the Guinness Storehouse Experience in Dublin has become one Ireland’s top attractions. However, as Barbara explains, the visitor journey doesn’t begin and end here. ‘Equally important for us is the transformation of our distillery visitor experiences across Scotland. Edinburgh and Johnnie Walker Princes Street will attract visitors, but we want that to be a mile-marker zero on the whisky journey, encouraging people to get out in Scotland and experience the beautiful, natural environments and vibrant communities our distilleries call home.’

And it’s not all about the big names – several newer whisky distilleries built their business models around visitors. This was especially important in cities where, pre-Covid, there was a year-round influx of tourists who didn’t have enough time to head north.

Clydeside Distillery in Glasgow had been achieving phenomenal numbers of visitors up until lockdown. In 2019, the distillery saw over 35,000 people go on a tour, and over double that came into the shop and cafe.

‘As a new distillery on the trajectory of growth we had expected to see a further 20% plus increase in 2020,’ Bridgeen Mullen, visitor centre manager at Clydeside Distillery tells me.

Similarly, Edinburgh’s Holyrood Distillery was hoping for big numbers in 2020. ‘Just three weeks before lockdown, we were finalising the details of our first full-season marketing campaign, which included an attraction partnership that would have realised around 45,000 visitors that year,’ says Debs Newman, brand home manager at Holyrood Distillery. The spend from these visitors would have contributed vital income in our first year as a new distillery.’

As Michael van der Veen, distillery experience manager at Kingsbarns Distillery in Fife, attests, having a visitor centre with a shop, cafe and tour is not just important for cash flow during the early years while whisky stock matures, but also for building a relationship with consumers. ‘If the tour offering is captivating then people keep following the progress of the whisky and you create customers before you have your own whisky to sell,’ he explains.

For some distilleries it was nearly impossible to run tours despite their best efforts. ‘In terms of our tours, Covid hit us especially hard as the majority of our tour groups were from Spain and Italy, so the tours literally just stopped overnight,’ says Drew Mckenzie-Smith, founder of Lindores Abbey Distillery. ‘We adapted the tours as much as we could as we really wanted to stay open, but sadly it was like a slow death as the distancing rules meant that you could get about two people on a tour which became financially unviable, and regrettably we eventually closed for several months.’

With ‘staycations’ the watchword of summer 2021, Graeme Littlejohn of SWA is hopeful whisky distillery tours will be high on the agenda. ‘We hope that this summer will see Scottish tourism set out on the road to recovery, so my advice is to check the latest guidance before travelling but get out there and discover world class visitor attractions on your doorstep.’

“If the tour is captivating people will keep following the progress of the whisky