A FRESH bid is being made to attract more high spending tourists from China's emerging middle class to holiday in Scotland.
Visitors from the country are predicted to spend £1 billion a year in the UK by 2017, helped by simplified tourist visas which make it easier for Chinese tourists to visit Britain.
Meanwhile, VisitScotland figures show that China is now one of Scotland's emerging international markets. In 2013 visitors from the country made 34,000 visits to Scotland, spending a total of £34 million.
But tourist operators in the Highlands think far more can be attracted, not least those who interested in visiting the national home of golf.
In Beijing today, representatives from the Highlands will make their pitch at the opening day of one of the sport's biggest trade events, the China Golf Show.
Last year it showcased over 480 brands and welcomed over 18,000 visitors, and amongst this year's event will be a delegation from Highland Golf Links (HGL).
It is a promotional body representing three of the area's finest links courses and four major hotels. HGL will try to ensure the Highlands are on the visiting golfers' itineraries.
Neil Hampton, general manager of the acclaimed Royal Dornoch Golf Club, and Stephen Laurie, sales manager at the four-star Kingsmills Hotel in Inverness, are representing HGL at the China Golf Show, which runs until Sunday.
The trip is coordinated by Scottish Enterprise and Scottish Development International.
Mr Hampton said: "Golf has grown rapidly in China and so we are looking to put ourselves in front of the decision makers for those that wish to explore the game outwith their boundaries.
"The volume of people in China means that even the smallest percentage increase in tourism turns into a very large number visiting Scotland. This is an ideal opportunity for us to show that Scotland is the Home of Golf and the Highlands in particular have a lot to offer."
China has a rapidly growing economy and one million registered golfers.
HGL argue Chinese tourists spend more than the average overseas visitor and value key items such as whisky, bagpipes, tartan, castles and golf, making the Highlands an obvious destination.
Highland Golf Links includes Castle Stuart Golf Links, which will host the Scottish Open for the fourth time in six years in 2016; Royal Dornoch Golf Club, which is consistently in the Top 10 list of the world's best golf courses; and The Nairn Golf Club, previous host of the Walker Cup and Curtis Cup and home to the Home Internationals tournament in 2016.
The partnership also includes the Kingsmills Hotel and Culloden House Hotel, Inverness; the Royal Golf Hotel, at Royal Dornoch; and the Golf View Hotel and Spa in Nairn. The group promotes Play and Stay packages in the Highlands to encourage golf tourism.
Fraser Cromarty, CEO of the Nairn Golf Club, is chairman of HGL. He said: "The Highlands has a lot to offer visitors and the China Golf Show is the perfect event to showcase this magnificent golfing destination to one of the world's largest emerging markets."
Golf tourism is already a major contributor to Scotland's economy and is estimated to be worth close to £220m annually, with forecasts of reaching £300m by the end of the decade.
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.Â
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.Â
That is invaluable.Â
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