#Scotlandhour
I will move swiftly on. The next item of business is a members’ business debate on motion S4M-05670, in the name of Christina McKelvie, on #Scotlandhour.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament congratulates the work done by the #Scotlandhour team as an example of individuals and business people collaborating to promote tourism in Scotland; recognises the team’s use of social media, such as Twitter, to give potential tourists an opportunity to gain positive information to help make their visit to Scotland a fulfilling one; understands that this is the first time that Twitter has been used in this way to promote a destination, with an upcoming hour being devoted to walks, trails and climbs, including the West Highland Way and woodland walks of Chatelherault Country Park in Hamilton, and hopes that this event on the last Wednesday of every month will be of ongoing benefit to the tourism industry in Scotland in the future.
12:36
It is my great pleasure to lead this debate on an effective and simple way to ensure that Scotland is recognised as one of the greatest places on this earth to visit. If you visit from abroad or live here, #Scotlandhour is the place to go to get positive and at times very local information about things to do, see and eat in Scotland.
We all know that the Scotland brand is very powerful, and that and a love for Scotland brought together the group that came up with #Scotlandhour. Created by Douglas Baird in August 2011, #Scotlandhour was the first time that Twitter had been used to promote a destination in that way, and it is refreshing and inspiring. It gives up-to-date, factual information about Scotland and, at times, lovely, quirky pointers for travellers. Douglas Baird was joined by Mark Caplin, who I am delighted to say is a general manager at the Holiday Inn Express hotel in Hamilton, in my constituency; Fiona Drane, director of Bright Light Marketing, which is an agency that works to get business noticed; Susan McNaughton, who is owner of Sandcastle Holidays and now works with social media to promote festivals and events around the Borders and Fife; and Aileen Lamb, who is a tourism manager with Scottish Enterprise and has been helping the visit St Andrews—a place very close to my heart—destination group to develop its programme.
I am delighted to invite the #Scotlandhour team to the public gallery. It has been tweeting all morning about coming along, so the Scottish Parliament has had some of the team’s input to its network on what is good to visit in Scotland.
That group of people just decided that they could provide a great service to travellers to Scotland and boost our tourism trade—they did not do it for any other reason. Rather than wait for someone else to do it, they just got on and did it. That is the type of innovation and imagination that Scotland is pretty famous for.
The last #Scotlandhour tweet chat had an audience of 596,000 people. That is a huge audience and, as #Scotlandhour says, it got all that advertising for free. It is worth looking at and participating in the tweets during the monthly hour of dedicated chat on the last Wednesday of each month. On top of those tweet chats, #Scotlandhour is building up its website—which, unsurprisingly, is http://www.scotlandhour.com/—to make an excellent resource for people who are considering visiting Scotland or to give those who are already coming the inside information on the very best things that our fine country offers.
The #Scotlandhour team are doing that not with any backing or sponsorship, but just for the greater good of the tourism industry in our country, which is very commendable.
One of the #Scotlandhour links tells us that there are 23 reasons to visit Scotland in 2013. I think that there are many, many good reasons to visit Scotland, but here are some of the 23 that the InsiderScotland website lists: our “coast with the most”; our golf, including Gleneagles and the Ryder cup; our whisky—in small measures; our adventure sports; our prehistory; Scotland’s fantastic food, to which all of us in the chamber are testament; our Celtic culture, reflected for example in Celtic Connections and Highland games; and our football. I am not a huge football fan, but I know that many are and have those memories of the Scotland team managing to clutch disaster from the jaws of victory.
We have the west Highland line—I have had the great pleasure of being on that steam train; fascinating wildlife, which is a great draw for photographers and others from around the world; and we have our seven cities, and it is worth mentioning them all—Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Dundee, Inverness, Stirling and our new city of Perth.
Scotland’s festivals are mentioned, including Celtic Connections and the Edinburgh festival, which is the biggest arts festival on the planet. Our world-class engineering is on the list. Scottish engineering is famous around the world and highlights range from the Forth bridge to the jaw-dropping Falkirk wheel. We have our mountains, and I am a committed mountain climber myself although I do not get as much opportunity these days. However, our mountains inspire us and I do not think that anyone has driven through Glen Coe without the hairs on the back of their neck standing up.
Our tartan—the fabric of Scotland—is on the list, as something that shows how colourful and intertwined we all are. Kilts are also mentioned—we like a man in a kilt, as well as ladies in tartan tights, which I have been known to wear in the chamber. Our monsters are on the list, and we have many of them, not just in the chamber but in our lochs and our forests.
We have our music, from Big Country to Simple Minds to Franz Ferdinand and Belle and Sebastian, as well as Rod Stewart, who would like to be Scottish but, perhaps mercifully, is not. We welcome his interest anyway.
Our literary talents make the list. Scotland overflows with talent, from the writer of “Auld Lang Syne”, Robert Burns—whom we have just celebrated—to Sir Walter Scott, Irvine Welsh and Alasdair Gray.
Scotland’s world heritage is mentioned. We have five impressive United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization world heritage sites. Those include Edinburgh’s old and new towns, Orkney’s prehistoric sites, the Antonine wall, St Kilda and—local to me—New Lanark. We also have the fantastic movie “Brave”, which shows Scotland at its best.
There is also hogmanay. We know how to party in Scotland and we should always remember that we like to do that partying with visitors from abroad. We love to have people here, and we have our Christmas lights celebrations across Edinburgh, Glasgow and other cities.
At 23 on the list is the year of natural Scotland. The Scottish Government and VisitScotland have designated 2013 as the year of natural Scotland to celebrate this unique country of 283 mountains over 3,000ft, 800 islands and beautiful and bountiful wildlife, from sea eagles to killer whales.
I have decided to increase the list from 23 to 25. At 24 are the fantastic areas you can visit in Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse. Those include Low Parks museum, walks under ancient oaks at Chatelherault, a visit to Morgan glen or a trip to the beautiful covenanters church in the stunning village of Dalserf, all rounded off with an ice cream from award winners Equi’s in Hamilton.
I extended the list to 25, because it would not be complete without a fantastic visit to our very own Scottish Parliament.
I ask that we all congratulate Dougie, Mark, Fiona, Susan, Aileen and Lesley for having the initiative to use social media to promote our land. I believe that others across the United Kingdom and beyond are now copying this great initiative. Our land—our Scotland—is better for the imagination and drive of the #Scotlandhour team. We wish them well and look forward to 27 March, when we will all be tweeting about Scotland’s playgrounds, activities, outdoors and sports. Given that the Commonwealth games and the Ryder cup come next year, the topic is very relevant to encouraging people to come and visit Scotland.
I ask members to remember #Scotlandhour, and I move the motion in my name.
Thank you very much. There was a lot of information in there.
12:44
I congratulate Christina McKelvie on drawing our attention to #Scotlandhour and the innovative use of social media that the initiative will continue to pioneer over the coming years. I would also like to congratulate those who established #Scotlandhour.
In this year of natural Scotland, we at the Parliament should look to celebrate the beauty of the natural environment around us by using our technological resources to promote our assets, which keep bringing tourists to our shores and keep me holidaying in Scotland every summer.
Spending by tourists in Scotland averages around £4 billion each year and supports around 200,000 jobs, so maintaining the interest of tourists is vital to Scotland’s economic success. That is true most of all for the rural communities who rely on a successful high season to sustain their economies through the low season of winter.
Since mid-2011, the Scotlandhour website has advertised the new hashtag and encouraged users to engage in topical tweets at a set time each month, with topics that carry their own themed hashtag, such as #active, #walk, #food or #travel. The hosts then ask a series of questions on that theme. That sorts the discussion into categories and makes it easier for visitors to navigate between the tweets in the days and months after they have been fed on to the live stream. Essentially, what is created is a catalogue of tips and links that keeps tourists up to date with what is available, and it allows them to ask the questions that will help them to make the most of their stay. It is a truly innovative way of engaging travellers with instant, reciprocal information and is a chance to create a real online community of shared interest based around our new and existing tourist attractions.
As the website reminds us,
“no one else has used Twitter to promote tourism.”
The facility has proved to be enormously popular, as the hashtag has featured in the Scottish trending categories in the past. We could, however, perhaps consider the merits of endorsing #Scotlandhour as a promoted trend in future over the assigned time each month. That might ensure that the promotion would gain maximum traffic and would make the most of the time available.
The Scottish Government’s tourism framework for change highlights that such innovation will be necessary if the ambition to increase tourism revenues to Scotland by 50 per cent by 2015 is to be realised and if we are, indeed, to succeed in making the country one of
“the world’s foremost tourism destinations.”
#Scotlandhour could also benefit the tourism industry by helping to achieve some of the key changes highlighted in the framework for change. For example, the tweets that feed into each session could provide a valuable resource for managing the quality of the visitor experience. Recommendations, and indeed criticisms, could be used by businesses and other stakeholders to promote certain assets and improve others. They would also help to provide greater access to information throughout Scotland in a sustained and economically efficient manner.
Twitter as a resource for promotion is free and accessible and, as most members who use it will be aware, opens up a whole new world of reciprocal information that, when managed properly, can provide a clear narrative and dialogue between thousands of people.
In its report, “Growing Pains—can we achieve a 50% growth in tourist revenue by 2015?” the previous Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee highlighted one of the key issues in achieving the growth that the sector requires, which is the need to recognise properly
“The role of technology, electronic communication and marketing.”
When we look at the Government’s framework for change over the coming years, it is clear how well the innovative steps being taken by #Scotlandhour fit in with our broader aims and objectives. It has a clear remit of modernising the tourism industry and making our ancient monuments and historic landscapes accessible to all in the digital realm. The ability to upload links and photos serves as a route to even more effective advertising.
As a regular tweeter and a massive fan of the Scottish countryside, I heartily endorse this great initiative and commend Christina McKelvie for bringing it to our attention today.
12:48
I thank Christina McKelvie for bringing the debate on this innovative and interesting initiative to Parliament. I join Christina McKelvie and Malcolm Chisholm in congratulating Dougie Baird and his fellow tweeters. I am not a prolific tweeter, but I look forward to, on Wednesday 27 March, becoming one of the audience of half a million who will take part in #Scotlandhour.
It is appropriate that it is here in this very modern Parliament, which speaks for Scotland, that we are talking about something so innovative and interesting.
Members will not be surprised to hear that I want to spend most of my speech talking about the fantastic tourism opportunities that we can tweet about in Strathkelvin and Bearsden. The theme for 27 March is Scotland’s playground, as Christina McKelvie mentioned, and I will be tweeting about Lennox forest in my constituency, where I regularly walk the dog. There are great trails in Lennox forest and beautiful views of the Campsies. In the future, we hope to have mountain biking in the forest through a social enterprise called Rebound.
On Wednesday 29 May, the theme is walks. That is a hashtag for me, as walking is my favourite pastime. I have already mentioned the Campsie fells in my constituency. Next week, I will meet the Forestry Commission to hear about the work that it is thinking of doing at the back of Clachan of Campsie. I find it interesting that we are managing to get different agencies to work together on the theme of tourism. When I was young, the Forestry Commission was just about growing trees to cut them down and turn them into paper, but now when it does that core business, increasingly it also talks about trails, waymarks and so on, so that folk can be brought out to the countryside.
Then there is Wednesday 26 June and #water. Kirkintilloch is the canal capital of Scotland, so we will definitely be tweeting then. Members will be interested to know that, tomorrow, Parliament will have the first marine tourism conference, which will last for the whole day. I think that around 100 delegates will attend. Therefore, we get the significance of marine tourism.
I need a historic hashtag, and I ask the innovators behind the idea for that. As most folk know, I am a history graduate. In my constituency, we have the Antonine wall, which Christina McKelvie mentioned, which is a UNESCO world heritage site. I see that we do not have a historic night in the months up to December. As a history graduate who loves Scottish castles, I put in a plea to have #historicScotlandhour next year, please.
Again, I thank Christina McKelvie for bringing a really interesting topic to us, and I thank those who are involved in #Scotlandhour. I look forward to being one of the half a million people who will take part in #Scotlandhour.
12:52
I, too, congratulate Christina McKelvie on bringing forward this interesting debate. I am very new to it and I am not even a signatory to the motion, but I hope to put that right by making a few complimentary comments.
My colleague Mary Scanlon should have participated in the debate but, unfortunately, she has been called away due to a family illness. However, my late arrival to the subject should not curb my enthusiasm, because what I have been able to read in the short time since I discovered that I would be participating in the debate and what I have heard in it have given me great cause for optimism.
The use of information technology in general and websites in particular is something that government is not very good at. We have seen billions wasted on planned IT systems for the health service, and we have even seen VisitScotland having serious problems in the past—it had significant inefficiencies as a result of failures in its website. However, the decentralised approach to the use of IT, modern technology and social media, in particular, lends itself to low-cost and highly inclusive advertising of what Scotland has to offer. With #Scotlandhour, we are seeing opportunities opening up for individuals to retain control of a structure that does not cost a fortune to maintain. Our tourism industry and many other parts of our society could learn from that advantage.
Like many other members, I, of course, have something to promote in the debate, and must put up my hands and say that I am guilty of having recently promoted what I hope will become a Macbeth trail around Scotland. The trail will allow individuals to follow the sites that directly connect either to the real Macbeth, who lived 1,000 years ago, or to Shakespeare’s Macbeth, who, as we have discovered through the study of history, bears little or no resemblance to the real Macbeth.
There is an opportunity there to promote yet another interesting aspect of Scotland’s tradition and history that will draw international visitors. I hope to take the opportunity to use at least some of the lessons that I have learned from what #Scotlandhour has achieved to ensure that we can promote that on a low-cost basis.
I thank Christina McKelvie for bringing the issue to my attention. I am delighted to offer my support for her motion and I look forward to finding out a great deal more about #Scotlandhour and to participating in some of its future activities. I look forward to hearing the minister’s response to the debate.
12:55
As members will be aware, I have had the opportunity to take part in possibly several hundred debates in the Parliament, but without being derogatory to any of the participants in those debates over the past 13 years, we cannot always say that they have been fun. However, I was bowled over by Christina McKelvie’s opening speech, which was not only an advertorial for the manifold attractions of this country of ours for tourists but was delivered in a way that I can describe only as a sort of tsunami of enthusiasm and passion for Scotland.
Therefore, I warmly congratulate Christina McKelvie on bringing this important topic to the chamber. It is the first time, I think, that we have debated the topic in relation to tourism, so Christina McKelvie has done us a great favour. I welcome to the public gallery all those who have made #Scotlandhour such an extraordinary success.
The immediacy and relevance of social media are becoming increasingly apparent to all of us, even those such as me who have not got the hang of social media or become regular participants in it. I hope that this will not be misquoted against me in future, but I really must do better. I ask Mr Johnstone not to use that comment out of context in relation to other topics.
Social media are becoming more important and are part of everyday life now, particularly for those who are on the correct side of 30. The latest VisitScotland research showed that in 2012 no less than one in three visitors to Scotland shared their trip experiences online while they were still in Scotland—so one third of all the visitors to our country talked about Scotland online. That is entirely new. In the old days, we would send a postcard, but these days online communication by visitors goes to all their friends and family, then it can be passed on to a very wide audience all over the world. So, as a method of communicating positive messages, social media have truly infinite opportunities. As Malcolm Chisholm rightly said, we must take advantage of social media; and Alex Johnstone said correctly that Governments are perhaps not best placed as institutions to be alive to and respond quickly enough to the opportunities that derive from the new technologies.
After their trip, nearly half of all visitors to Scotland used an online platform to talk about the trip. We have seen some fine examples of truly innovative tweets in that regard. Not only can we send stunning pictures of Scotland, but recently the Canadian astronaut Commander Chris Hadfield tweeted some from the international space station. I suppose that we could say that that tweet was quite literally out of this world. Such endorsements are helpful in attracting visitors to Scotland. We want the Scottish Government to be open and alive to the opportunities that social media provide.
VisitScotland is terrific at marketing and its efforts have been acknowledged worldwide. This year began with CNN, the international news outlet, listing Scotland as the country to go to: the top country, the best country, the leading country out of around 200 countries in the world. What a tremendous accolade! When I heard that on the early morning news, I thought that I must find out exactly what the rationale was; it was that VisitScotland’s marketing of the winning years and the focus years—the year of food and drink, the year of creative Scotland, the year of natural Scotland and the year of homecoming—creates a bold vision of Scotland and gives a positive message about and a positive portrayal of Scotland. It helps to create an image and perception throughout the world that Scotland is an interesting and serious—not frivolous—place that is worth visiting and which has a huge number and variety of attractions, as Christina McKelvie correctly signified.
It occurs to me that it would be useful if those who are involved in #Scotlandhour could give us their suggestions of opportunities for other focused years. Of course, 2014 is the year of homecoming and, as I indicated earlier this week, we are thinking about opportunities for 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018. Perhaps people could use #Scotlandhour to make suggestions for what we could do in those years. That way, we could hear from people across the country. Policies should not be set by me and a group of people in the public sector making decisions; they should be set as the result of the participation of everyone in Scotland.
I am aware that the blogmanay hashtag reached more than 3.7 million users worldwide and produced more than 1,000 images of Edinburgh’s hogmanay and winter on social media channels. Increasingly, of course, all businesses that are involved in tourism are dependent on the internet for their bookings. These days, not to be online is not really to be in tourism. That raises the important question of how to ensure that internet access, at good speeds, is available throughout the country. That is another topic, but involves something to which we and other parties are committed.
Visitor satisfaction surveys are important to us. Some 94 per cent of visitors are satisfied with their trip to Scotland, overall, and 98 per cent will probably or definitely recommend Scotland, based on their experiences. I imagine that many political parties would be quite pleased with a 98 per cent rating, although I suspect that that will not happen in this lifetime.
Those figures are valuable, and the value of social media to further improve Scottish tourism and recruit people to come to Scotland cannot be overestimated.
This is tourism week, and we have already seen a number of great developments. A new visitor centre has opened on Buchanan Street in Glasgow, in masses of time for the Commonwealth games and the Ryder cup, to which Christina McKelvie referred, and many in Scotland have taken the opportunity to promote tourism as a great career and to train young people in all aspects of tourism. The FutureChef competition, which was organised and run by Springboard, is in its 13th year. It teaches teenagers how to cook to a standard that would have been unimaginable for a teenager to attain three or four decades ago. The East Lothian Hospitality and Tourism Academy, which is a partnership between business, Queen Margaret University and the local council, gives 40 volunteer secondary 4 and 5 children the opportunity to participate in university-type lectures and industry-type training. I met four of those young people, all of whom said that their personal confidence increased massively as a result of their attendance. That is an invaluable investment and improvement whatever they do. One of them told me that she had not previously known that there was such a thing as events tourism and that she was going to pursue that as a career.
Those types of thing are the future for tourism in Scotland. I hope that they can be pursued further through the collective wisdom of those who are involved in #Scotlandhour and who participate in the hourly Wednesday evening debates.
I thank everyone who has participated in this debate, which has been a useful one. I want to see what more we can do in Government to work with the organisation that has brought so much credit to this country to develop and achieve even more for this great country of ours through the use of social media.
13:04
Meeting suspended.
14:30
On resuming—