Scotland’s tourism ready to cash in on baton relay
SCOTLAND’S national tourism agency is gearing up to cash in on the international exposure generated by the Queen’s Baton Relay in the run up to next year’s Commonwealth Games.
The Queen along with the Commonwealth and Olympic athletes, retired cyclist Sir Chris Hoy and former sprinter Alan Wells, are to launch the 248-day event at Buckingham Palace on Wednesday. It will go on the road to all the participating countries.
VisitScotland is to launch a £2.4 million series of tourism boosting events have been planned as it makes its way through India, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, whose visitors to Scotland contribute £210m to the economy each year.
The campaign will highlight not just the games, which are due to begin on July 23 2014, but also raise the profile of the year-long Homecoming celebrations and the Ryder Cup at Gleneagles in the same year.
During a week-long period of activity in Bangalore, Delhi and Mu mb a i , VisitScotland will work with the country’s national media, which includes some of the most-read newspapers in the world, to promote Scotland ahead of 2014.
Indian is one best emerging markets for tourists alongside Brazil, Russia and China, and visitors contributed £18m to the Scottish economy in 2012, an increase of £5m on the year before.
Alongside these engagements, tourist industry representatives will meet with travel agents and tour providers in an attempt to entice even more operators to include Scotland in their tour programmes as 95% of visitors from India still use a travel agent when booking a holiday.
Minister for External Affairs and International Deve l o p ment , Humza Yousaf MSP will take part in a special SCOTSagent graduation, which seeks to educate travel agents about Scotland through a series of online seminars in India.
He said: “Scotland is a place of rich culture, beauty and heritage and we welcome the world to come and experience some of what we have to offer.”