Chamber and committees

We work closely with a range of public bodies (including VisitScotland, Scottish Enterprise, Scottish Natural Heritage, Skills Development Scotland and Historic Environment Scotland) and all sectors of the tourism industry to maximise the contribution of the visitor economy throughout all areas of Scotland, including Aberdeenshire East and the north east of Scotland. A number of public agencies and funding schemes have helped grow the visitor economy in the area

VisitScotland

Aberdeenshire East specific

As well as the VisitScotland Regional Director and Industry Relationships Manager working with key stakeholders and industry to promote different themes within the area, specific activities for the Aberdeen East constituency include:

The launch of the Coastal Trail (in May 2016) and the Castle Trail (in March 2016), the latter launch being held at Fyvie and Delgatie Castles.

Presentations given at Turriff Tourism Action Group and Turriff Business Association and specific promotion scheduled for Turriff Show and Formartine Floral Trail over the summer.

Bespoke partnership marketing activity with local companies such as the recent VisitScotland’s Mackie’s ice cream tub promotion

Working with Aberdeenshire Council, VisitScotland delivered a multi-touch-point campaign (covering digital channels, postal direct mail and press) to promote Aberdeenshire in spring 2016. The activity ran from March until April 2016 and was aimed at reinforcing the region’s key strengths to inspire visitors to take a break in Aberdeenshire in spring/summer 2016. This was in addition to regular familiarisation trips organised for tourism buyers and media

Providing quality accommodation is crucial to developing a must-visit, must-return destination. That’s why as well as supporting the 322 Aberdeenshire businesses currently in its Quality Assurance Scheme, VisitScotland has been working closely with Aberdeenshire Council on a project to help Aberdeenshire businesses access VisitScotland Quality Assurance Schemes for the first time.

In addition, VisitScotland has worked with Aberdeenshire Council to access a list of businesses affected by flooding in order to delay/waive invoices for quality assurance. The regional VisitScotland industry relationship manager has also been in contact with the businesses listed to offer additional support.

As part of their engagement with the industry in the area, the VisitScotland CEO has recently undertaken a listening tour. This included a media story on investment in the north east as a tourist destination, showcasing the Aberdeen Music Hall refurbishment. It also featured a meeting with young people and entrepreneurs in the industry to find out more about the challenges they face as well as the opportunities, and how VisitScotland can help to encourage more young people to enter the industry.

North East of Scotland

As the national tourism organisation, VisitScotland works closely with individual enterprises and the local Destination Management Organisations (DMOs), including Visit Royal Deeside, Banffshire Coast Tourism Partnership, Fraserbugh and District Tourism Group, Inverurie Business Group and the Braemar Tourism Group.

During 2014-15, through their website: www.visitscotland.com VisitScotland had over 20 million visitors. During the same time period 278,000 searches involving Aberdeen City and Shire were made and over 201,000 potential visitors also searched for accommodation in Aberdeen City and Shire which was an 18% increase from the previous year.

VisitScotland Information Centres (VICs) provide visitors with advice and inspiration on what to do and see across Aberdeenshire and are located in Braemar, Ballater, Stonehaven, Huntly, Alford, Fraserburgh and Banff, with an Information Point at Crathie. The VIC in Aberdeen also carries a great deal of information on activities and accommodation available across Aberdeenshire.

VisitScotland’s Growth Fund supports the marketing and promotion of activity of local groups. Previous awards have included:

Aberdeen Festivals - £25, 000 – promoting Aberdeen festivals to visitors in Scandinavia and rest of Scotland

Aberdeen City and Shire Food and Drink project - £20,000 – funded as part of the 2015 Year of Food and Drink, this was a promotion to highlight the Food and drink offering in the area.

Golf Aberdeen City and Shire - £22,500 – highlighting the golf offer in the area.

By working with local partners, VisitScotland’s business tourism team is supporting and enabling local ambitions to capitalise on business tourism. Match-funding of £155,750 from the VisitScotland Conference Bid Fund has helped VisitAberdeenshire secure 21 business events (2013 through to 2020) which are predicted to deliver an estimated £12.5 million in delegate spend from around 8,548 delegates. There are also nine pending business events between 2017 – 2021, supported by a potential match-funding commitment of £53K which are predicted to deliver an estimated £6.3 million in delegate spend from approximately 4,393 delegates if all the bids were to be successful.

EventScotland

Recent and forthcoming events supported with funding from EventScotland include the Turriff Show, the Scottish Traditional Boat Festival, The Taste of Grampian and a clan event, Tartan Ties, all totalling £27,110. In this Year of Innovation, Architecture and Design, £12,500 is being made available as part of the national Festival of Architecture.

Scottish Enterprise

Scottish Enterprise (SE) has recently approved £435k funding towards activity in support of tourism within the north east. SE will work with VisitAberdeenshire, the new Destination Management Organisation (DMO) for Aberdeen City and Shire, to build a more connected, collaborative and innovative industry, focussed on market opportunities and growth. This will be achieved through supporting companies with product development, business engagement and strategic leadership. SE has agreed to account manage the new DMO.

SE is working closely with Opportunity North East (ONE), the private sector led body focusing on a sustainable economic future for North East Scotland, which itself works closely with Visit Aberdeenshire on a joined-up strategy for the tourism sector in the region.

Recent SE activity and planned events includes:

13 Digital Tourism Scotland (DTS) workshops have been delivered to date since November attracting 76 businesses across the destination. The next programme will be launched in autumn.

“Are you China-ready?” – business briefing taking place on 30 June 2016 in Aberdeen.

Destination Leaders Programme Information Evening – taking place on 16 June 2016 in Aberdeen.

Plans to run an “Introduction to Developing Your International Tourism Markets” - a two day workshop beginning of November 2016

Destination Measurement Framework – a £50k procurement exercise currently underway

Following SE’s investment towards the new Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre (AECC) of £10 million, a procurement exercise to secure an operator for the new centre is currently underway with SE and Aberdeen City Council working in partnership to identify a suitable contractor. Formal submissions are due in early June 2016.

SE contributed £1.84 million towards upgrading ski lift infrastructure at Glenshee as part of a programme sponsored by Scottish Ministers covering three ski centres (three within Highlands and Islands Enterprise). Construction is underway and scheduled to be completed by March 2017.

A total of £1.4 million has been invested in Royal Deeside and the Cairngorms by SE in the period 2009-16. Around £400k of this funding was used to assist with the creation of the Deeside Way. The remainder was used for DMO and product development along with resort accommodation support.

Together with Aberdeenshire Council and Visit Aberdeenshire, SE has co-funded Golf Aberdeen City and Shire Ltd to employ a Golf Tourism Executive. Since its establishment the organisation has recruited over 60 business members generating circa £30k of industry income; set up a high profile website; produced two annual Area Golf Tourism Guides; attended numerous specialist golf travel fairs, generic travel and tourism exhibitions; hosted press familiarisation trips to the area; secured considerable national and international media coverage; and established a strong level of industry credibility within the golf tourism sector, both domestically and internationally. Collectively, it is estimated that this has contributed to at least 1,150 new golf visitors (overnight stays) plus an additional 410 day golf visitors resulting in an additional revenue expenditure for the area of over £770k as a direct result of the work of the Golf Aberdeen City and Shire Ltd.

SE has approved funding of approximately £1.25 million towards the project development costs of the Aberdeen Harbour expansion proposals. The expansion project will allow Aberdeen Harbour to seek opportunities for growth in the expanding cruise vessel tourism.

In addition SE work intensively on a one to one basis with a number of tourism account managed companies within the Aberdeen City and Shire area. This support allows these companies to access all SE/SDI interventions and support which can range from organisational development support to strategic and leadership support.

Scottish Natural Heritage

Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) operate three National Nature Reserves (NNRs) in Aberdeenshire (Forvie, St Cyrus and Muir of Dinnet) each of which has approximately 45,000 visits annually, and provides visitor centres and a range of visitor facilities, including guided trails, events and view points. They also provide financial support to a further Reserve at Glen Tanar. SNH distributes a range of publications aimed at helping visitors understand and enjoy the natural heritage (mainly “Explore for a day – Aberdeenshire” and NNR leaflets). Places and events are also publicised through social media, blogs etc.

Historic Environment Scotland

Historic Environment Scotland (HES) operates five staffed properties in Aberdeenshire:

Corgarff Castle

Duff House

Huntly Castle

Kildrummy Castle

Tolquhon Castle

HES also operate 17 unstaffed sites in Aberdeenshire and are active participants in the Malt Whisky Trail and Castle Trail groups and local Destination Management Organisations.

These sites benefit from a range of marketing as part of our portfolio of properties - including print distributed nationally, online presence, communication to our members and as part of our national ticketing products. Events and exhibitions at Duff House are proactively marketed to a targeted database. As year round sites Duff and Huntly form part of our annual St Andrews ticket giveaway promotion, HES are working in partnership with VisitScotland to provide visitor information services at a selection of these sites.

Future development of tourism

Through Aberdeen City and Shire Economic Forum, Scottish Enterprise has fully supported the establishment and development of the refreshed area tourism partnership and the associated strategy. The new DMO will be the lead body for tourism in the Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire area with the primary purpose of delivering a tourism strategy for the area and with a remit of both destination marketing and development. Their vision for 2020 is that the area will be recognised as one of Scotland’s leading destinations for leisure and business travel, providing high quality, distinctive and authentic experiences to visitors to the area, focussing not just on the places (Aberdeen, Royal Deeside), but also on themes (castles, coast, whisky and golf). Scottish Enterprise has also recently committed to account manage the new tourism organisation.