Come for holiday in Scotland and enjoy the rain

BRIAN DONNELLY

Published on 24 Nov 2007

Every cloud has a silver lining. To those of us who live with it week in week out it's just bad weather, but Scotland's tourism leader believes we should market our rain to bring in visitors.

Every cloud has a silver lining. To those of us who live with it week in week out it's just bad weather, but Scotland's tourism leader believes we should market our rain to bring in visitors.

Peter Lederer, chairman of Visitscotland, called on businesses to do more to sell storms to tourists as he launched the annual report yesterday in Edinburgh.

Despite record figures of more than 63% occupancy rate for hotels last year and 2.7 million international visitors to Scotland he said there was still much to be done to reach Visitscotland's target of increasing tourism revenues by 50% by 2015.

He said that in parts of Canada, where the climate can be similarly extreme, weather watching holiday packages are offered and this could be adapted for Scotland, particularly in the islands where he said in some cases occupancy is 100% for six months of the year, but plummets in off-season.

He said: "If you can imagine yourself sitting back behind a large window with a malt whisky watching a storm coming in it is quite an emotional experience.

"It's not bad weather it is just different weather. If you live in London and you don't see that very often, it can be quite special. People are looking for a different experience and seeing nature.

"It is not the only thing that can be done but it is one of the things. Even if you are full for the six months, it is still only 50% occupancy for the year."

Mr Lederer, who runs Gleneagles Hotel, added: "In my business 25 years ago they told me it would never work opening more than seven months a year. These islands should be running eight, nine or 10 months, but they have to look for different ways to do it in the products they are offering."

He also claimed that some tourism staff need better training as, on one visit, he heard a receptionist unable to answer basic questions on Hogmanay bookings.

"They wanted to come, they wanted to spend their money but could not," he said.

Last year the UK visitor market, described as challenging, was down 10.6% to 13.3 million. Calling for a better national strategy involving all tourism business, Visitscotland admitted it has direct links with just over half of the 20,000 tourism businesses in Scotland.

Mr Lederer said: "If we work together to raise the standards it will make our own lives better, and will help Scotland's tourism industry continue to thrive.

"This is crucial as we work towards the shared tourism industry ambition of growing revenues from tourism by 50% by 2015."

Iain Herbert, chief executive of the Scottish Tourism Forum, said weather watching was "an exciting opportunity", adding: "I also know stories of people visiting who say the weather allows them the time to relax and read a book."

At the launch of the report concerns were raised that the document was not made available at the event because it was produced online only.

A spokesman for Visitscotland said: "Having it online has huge green benefits it is important that we look at our carbon footprint and sustainability and see how we can address that and this is one way of doing that."

Concerns were raised over the effectiveness of the controversial Visitscotland.com website, in which Visitscotland is a key stakeholder.

Chief executive Philip Riddle said of Visitscotland.com: "We accept there is room for improvement."

2006/2007 figures