The success of the London Olympics will help Scotland's vital tourism industry exploit the huge opportunities of 2014 and the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, VisitScotland's chief executive has said.

Malcolm Roughead said the organisation of the London Games and the achievements of the athletes, including a host of stars from Commonwealth nations, had created "a level of expectation and anticipation" for Glasgow.

"It was such compelling and gripping viewing, and the very fact that we have got so many athletes who could potentially be in Glasgow provides the most amazing opportunity," Scotland's tourism chief said in an interview with The Herald. "Success breeds success, and to build on it we need positivity, which starts at home."

The smaller scale of both Glasgow and the Games make them more accessible, which will hopefully translate into ticket sales and bring visitors from England and overseas, he added.

He said: "It is about the whole of 2012. We have been using it as a catalyst, with the Homecoming and the Ryder Cup, to make sure that all the things we are doing in the event world make it a perfect stage to hold conferences and bring economic opportunity to Scotland."

VisitScotland has been running a Surprise Yourself campaign, targeting more than 1.2 million people in the south-east of England during the Olympics period.

Mr Roughead said: "We won't know the full impact until January, but it has been exceptionally successful."

During the Olympics, the organisation had over 1000 businesses visiting its showcase at Scotland House, and it flew 50 foreign journalists to Scotland.

Mr Roughead added: "We are also working closely with media colleagues in Canada and Australia and feeding them footage, so when the time comes they have already got Scotland in a box."

This month sees the roll-out of the organisation's global advertising campaign, aimed at capitalising on what it calls Scotland's biggest ever tourism opportunity – Brave, the Disney Pixar animation blockbuster set in Scotland, which launched a fortnight ago. "The early signs are fantastic," Mr Roughead said.

"We have more than 1000 businesses who are working with us to offer related experiences for the family market, we have got tool kits they can download and a website we created specifically around this, which has well over 500,000 unique users at the moment. It has generated 3000 click-throughs into partner websites."

He said Disney's travel arm was reporting an "extremely encouraging take-up of its Scotland programme", and there were also "lots of conversations going on with Disney-Pixar in terms of capitalising on the relationship which has developed in the creative industries, knowledge sharing, and being able to tap into the world's largest entertainment organisation".

However, Mr Roughead said this summer's weather had been "exceptionally extreme" and had an impact on businesses, particularly in the camping and caravanning sector.

He said: "Add to that the cost of fuel and the general economic climate and trading has been very difficult for people.

"There are 270,000 jobs dependent on tourism, the overall impact is £11bn including day trippers. Clearly it is absolutely huge in the Scottish economic context, and we are not immune from what is happening around us.

"Margins have been eroded and people are having to work really, really hard just to get slightly ahead or stay where they were."

On political help for tourism, Mr Roughead said air passenger duty was a significant obstacle to visitor numbers, as was the time taken to issue visas.

He said: "If we are determined to increase our international footprint and we want to do business with people, we have to look at how we can make it easier for people to come here, and to invest here.

"We have raised the visa issue with the UK gGovernment and we believe they are looking at how they can facilitate the process in China, which is quite key for the future. Nobody is saying there should not be a visa system, but I think we could make it a bit more user-friendly."