New tourism group for Highlands as area seeks to recover from Covid pandemic and meet challenges of Brexit
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A NEW organisation hopes to give a unified voice to the Highland tourism sector as it meets the challenge of recovery from the pandemic and the impact of Brexit.
Sustainability will also be an important factor for the new group.
Highland Tourism is a new community interest company set up by Yvonne Crook, who runs catering company Good Highland Food with her husband Mike, and Sam Faircliff, the managing director of Cairngorm Brewery.
They hope the organisation will be able to play a strategic role in helping the sector adapt to the challenges of the 21st century, and unify the region’s tourism sector in a single brand.
“Tourism is a £541 million business in the Highlands, employing 19,000 people, yet there is no single trade body to advocate for it at a time when we are trying to deal with the impact of Brexit and Covid,” Mrs Crook said.
These factors may be presenting an unprecedented challenge to the sector, but Mrs Crook points out that Highland tourism was already showing signs of decline before the pandemic, with 2018 figures revealing a fall in overnight visitors by seven per cent and a drop of 15 per cent in day visitors.
Although she stressed that local destination organisations such as the North Coast 500, Visit Inverness Loch Ness, the Cairngorms Partnership and Lochaber’s Outdoor Capital of the UK are doing a good job for their own areas, she believes the area is handicapped by the lack of a single group.
“There are destination organisations and community groups doing a great job but there is no single body to manage the Highland brand, lead and drive a vision and strategic context for tourism recovery,” she said. “The Highlands has one of the best natural environments in Europe. We have a passionate Highland tourism community with a huge amount of energy and an amazing array of outdoor activities and experiences.
“We have access to global research on tourism trends as well as best practice in destination development. We just needed an industry body to lead and drive.”
Highland Tourism aims to work with businesses to encourage networking and development and have a social and environmental mission. It will focus on presenting unique experiences and activities for visitors and positioning and marketing the Highlands as a place that cares.
“We have had such a great response so far that I am confident we will build an organisation for the whole of the Highlands,” Mrs Crook added.
