A major new initiative to capitalise on the rising success of Scotland's business tourism sector is set to be announced next week, prior to the unveiling of a major industry-wide project in December.
Next week's conference of the Scottish Tourism Alliance (STA), the commercially led group co-ordinating Scotland's target of 20% growth by 2020 (known as TS2020), will include a presentation on a new business tourism Scotland website, plus fresh research highlighting regional "hot spots" for convention and conference-led business.
Marc Crothall, STA chief executive, has warned the industry not to make the "Sydney Olympics mistake" and assume that major sporting events - including the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games and the Ryder Cup at Gleneagles - will automatically generate added business and leisure tourism traffic.
He said: "This year has been just the starting point. We've built momentum - we don't want to be like Sydney, which didn't continue with its marketing effort, and had to wait six years for tourism to return to 2000 heights.
"We are in a very strong position … but it's vital that there is continuing marketing both internationally and south of the Border. Budgets need to be made available to VisitScotland.
"The success of this year has proved that tourism is a big, big player, but we can't afford complacency."
Crothall estimated that business tourism - one strand of the TS2020 strategy, which also includes heritage, towns and cities, nature, events and skills - could contribute 35%-40% of the growth because of the potential "multipliers", ie, extending the stay of business visitors, and encourage them to spend on leisure.
Business Tourism for Scotland is an 11-person STA sub-group chaired by Judy Rae, head of events at the Glasgow Science Centre.
Rae said: "The AGM on Wednesday will launch Scotland's first dedicated business tourism website. This is the first time a business tourism group in Scotland has had a formal representation from the industry itself.
"I am fortunate to be the chair of a group of players within the industry from across Scotland with representation from key players at a senior level in private and public-sector organisations.
"What we have in common is that we're all really passionate about business tourism and have the opportunity to closely align the industry views on current trends, working with the business tourism unit at VisitScotland and the other public-sector agencies."
Rae emphasised that, for all the marketing focus on the recent major international events, which she said has "elevated business tourism to a different plane", the sector has been making advances for 20 years, with the EICC, the SECC and now the Hydro as its flagship venues. "It's not just an overnight success," she said.
A recent investigation by a UK Government all-party parliamentary group into the competitiveness of the UK event industry (including business tourism, corporate hospitality, festivals and events) found that the sector is expected to grow by 33% by 2020, with Glasgow and Edinburgh cited as examples of strong performers in terms of facilities and public-private working.
The study also suggested that public policy measures such as visa requirements, air passenger duty (APD) and VAT were potential barriers to growth.
A spokesman for VisitScotland said: "The business tourism sector will absolutely be a core contributor to the TS2020 growth target based on the multitude of meetings, conferences and incentives taking place around the country. The [Scottish Government's £2 million] Conference Bid Fund has secured conferences from 2013 to 2024, using this as a serious pipeline for business on the books worth around £150m."
According to the Great Britain Tourism Survey and VisitScotland, estimates for GB resident overnight trips to Scotland and international inbound trips to Scotland in 2014 totalled 14.8 million, with £4.4 billion being spent. However, these estimates are based on incomplete data and are likely to be revised upwards.
The Scottish Tourism Alliance's TS2020 strategy seeks to add an extra £1bn a year to Scotland's tourism revenue by 2020, from £5.5bn to £6.5bn.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article