Ross-shire tourism businesses reconnect with overseas customers at VisitScotland virtual travel trade event
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Businesses from Ross-shire were among over 50 tourism firms from across the Highlands who were able to engage directly with potential international customers at a virtual event aimed at driving up bookings from overseas visitors.
Discover Scotland: Reconnect 2022 is part of VisitScotland’s campaign to rebuild international tourism demand, as well as supporting the country’s ambitions to be a leading destination for responsible tourism.
In total, 324 Scottish businesses engaged with 298 international tour operators and travel agents from 21 global markets at the three-day online event.
These included Assynt House near Evanton, Eagle Rock Luxury Highland Guest Lodge at Applecross and other businesses from across the Highland local authority area such as Nairn tour company Airts and Pairts, Cruise Loch Ness, Beauly's Downright Gabbler, John O' Groats Ferries Ltd, Golf Highland, Caithness and Sutherland tourism group Venture North, the Palace Hotel & Spa in Inverness, Loch Shiel Cruises and Armadale Castle, Gardens and Museum on Skye.
In all, 4455 meetings were facilitated on the virtual platform.
While inbound travel accounts for a fifth of all visitors to Scotland, it provides more than 40 per cent of the overall spending. Scotland’s key international markets according to spend pre-pandemic were USA, Germany, Australia, China and France.
Chris Taylor, VisitScotland’s regional leadership director, said: “Domestic visitors have been driving the recovery following the impact of Covid-19, but the return of our international visitors is a major step towards the responsible recovery of Scottish tourism.
“Discover Scotland 2022 enabled tourism businesses from the Highlands to connect with key buyers from around the globe to help attract visitors, from near and far, to help rebuild our valuable tourism industry.
"As well as the economic benefits of engaging with global markets, Discover Scotland was a hugely enjoyable week in terms of reconnecting with colleagues and customers from around the world. We look forward to sharing our stunning landscapes, history, culture and warm welcome with visitors this summer and beyond.”
Jane Cumming, joint owner of Downright Gabbler in Beauly, said: “Discover Scotland was a great event and we had the chance to meet some really interesting people who we hope to do business with in the future. It was great to hear that people are starting to plan trips to Scotland once more.”
Robert Miller, product manager for Canada's Goway Travel, said: “Events like Discover Scotland 2022 are critical in our industry’s recovery. It is great to discuss opportunities, operational challenges, and to learn about all the excellent and innovative ideas, activities and updates that have come about over the last two years. It has been great to reconnect with existing partners to plan and prepare for the many travelers that are quickly gearing up for their long overdue trips abroad. It’s shaping up to be a busy summer; finally!”
Nick Landy, supplier relationship manager with Brendan Vacations, whose main market is the USA, said: “Discover Scotland 2022 has been timely and vital in facilitating a reconnection with our partners.
"The OnAir platform is great and provides easy access to supplier's collateral, media and contact details. The sessions have been interesting and relevant and the message about sustainability is loud and clear; we no longer see this as something we should be thinking about but instead we are working hard to make it our way of doing business.”
