Scotland must avoid "complacency" in its expectations of the 2014 Ryder Cup, the head of the country's leading golf industry body has said.
Lee Derrick, head of Golf Tourism Scotland (GTS), warned against seeing the prestigious international tournament as a "golden goose" for Scottish tourism, and urged the industry to "get creative" to boost the sector.
"A lot of people think that saying we are 'the home of golf' is enough to sell the country. It isn't. We should be doing a lot more at consumer shows and European tour events, for example. We need to grasp the nettle rather than do silly campaigns that only result in a lot of data about how many people intend to come to Scotland."
The remark will be seen as a veiled criticism of VisitScotland's Drive It Home golf challenge, a marketing campaign criticised by many in the industry for alleged lack of market knowledge of the booking habits of potential golf tourists.
GTS is holding an industry summit at the Marriott Dalmahoy outside Edinburgh in July to encourage the Scottish golf sector to capitalise on the "exceptional" run of upcoming major tournaments, including the Ryder Cup at Gleneagles, and The Open Championships at Muirfield in 2013 and St Andrews in 2015.
Derrick said GTS hopes to enrol Trump International as a member: "Trump has built a visually spectacular course that has put the northeast on the golfing map."
Asked if he agreed with Trump's campaign against wind turbines, he said: "If turbines are in your eyeline when playing a particular shot then, yes, I would be miffed about it but whether it will stop people coming remains to be seen.
"Donald Trump is an extremely smart guy. People are talking about his challenge to the Scottish Government and TV shows are cutting to shots of his [Menie] course. I don't think he's spent a penny on marketing yet."
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