New £1.25m initiative launched to help Scottish tourism businesses
A new £1.25 million initiative aimed at helping Scottish tourism businesses develop new ideas in response to customer demand is launched today. The Tourism Intelligence Scotland service can help companies access and share a range of useful intelligence to help them stay competitive and explore new opportunities to increase customer spend in Scotland.
Tourism Intelligence Scotland is a joint initiative developed by Scottish Enterprise, Highlands and Islands Enterprise and VisitScotland, helping businesses achieve growth and embrace innovative ways to create new products, services and ways of working. The website www.tourism-intelligence.co.uk acts as the point of contact for businesses, providing intelligence and insights available to companies, along with news, events, workshops and areas to share information and discussions.
Julie Franchetti, Scottish Enterprise’s tourism innovation manager said, “Scottish businesses must adapt to the changes in tourism patterns caused by the economic climate. Creating innovative new products and services based on Scotland's key strengths, and which meet changing customer needs, is crucial if Scotland is to remain a globally attractive location to visit.
“Globally, the tourism industry has suffered during the recession, which means our companies have to work harder to retain customers and attract new ones. There is also the opportunity to grow the domestic market, as people continue to holiday closer to home, particularly with the volcanic ash cloud creating continuing uncertainty with flights.
“Over the last five years Scottish Enterprise has supported thousands of businesses through its Tourism Innovation Programme, bringing new ideas to the market that can help increase visitor spend in Scotland.
“We know that by being innovative, our companies can contribute more than £15 million in additional turnover to the Scottish tourism sector, creating 200 new jobs and adding over £6 million to the Scottish economy.
“Innovation needs to be driven by intelligence. Being able to access this quickly and easily through Tourism Intelligence Scotland will make a huge difference to the success of an innovative tourism project.”
The Tourism Intelligence Scotland service includes a number of practical guides for businesses, such as Scottish tourism in the future, Knowing our markets, Listening to our visitors, Walking Tourism and Golf Tourism. These are designed to help businesses understand the opportunities for growing their business using practical insights and industry intelligence, and respond with products and services to meet customer demand.
Various workshops, conferences, events and a newsletter are also on offer, helping tourism companies network, collaborate, share and access practical insights for their business.
The new service is unveiled today at a Tourism Innovation Day, being held in Edinburgh and Inverness, and on a live webinar across Scotland, alongside three new tourism business ventures which are being awarded funding through the Tourism Innovation Fund.
The three winning projects fought off tough competition to win the Scottish Enterprise Tourism Innovation Fund award, which offers match-funding of up to £30,000 and professional advice to help develop and commercialise Scotland’s best innovative tourism ideas.
Perthshire-based Highland Fling won a contribution of £30k to build the UK’s first permanent bridge bungee at Garry Bridge near Killicrankie. Through negotiation, thorough market research, collaboration, economic impact studies and shared vision, the company now has the go-ahead to build the bungee and visitor centre.
Wilderness Scotland, based in Edinburgh, won the £18k award to develop an innovative new range of packaged family adventure holidays that deliver high quality, convenience and value.
Finally, Glasgow-based Sacred Scotland will develop its original Scottish Churches Scheme with £24k of funding to map out pilgrim ways so that visitors can follow defined routes and stop and visit churches along the way.
For more information on Scottish Enterprise’s Tourism Innovation Programme please call 0845 607 8787. To register with the Tourism intelligence Scotland website, log on to www.tourism-intelligence.co.uk, phone 0131 449 8833 or email info@tourism-intelligence.co.uk.
Tourism Innovation Day is an event organised in partnership with Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise which takes place on Thursday 20 May from 9.30am to 4.15pm at the John McIntyre Centre in Edinburgh and Green House in Inverness.
Speakers include Gareth Williams, co-founder of SkyScanner the biggest flight search engine in Europe and currently the most successful online business in Scotland, Wilma Finlay award winning organic ice cream maker with highly successful visitor attraction Cream O’Galloway, Michael Willmott from the Trajectory Partnership who are specialists on trends and insights, Chris Barez-Brown, a guru on innovation with new techniques for developing front-end products and services.
The event is aimed at anyone with an interest in tourism and costs £85 + VAT to attend in Edinburgh and £45 to attend in Inverness.
The Tourism Innovation Fund was launched in February 2009, and is based on the success of the previous Tourism Innovation Development Awards (TIDAs). To date, 11 projects have successfully come through the competitive judging process from over 75 applications. These projects are demand-driven, innovative new tourism projects with real potential to achieve significant growth for Scotland.