A new phase in Stirling’s centuries-old history as one of Scotland’s top tourism hubs has opened with the launch of the City Pass, a universal ticket designed to encourage visitors to linger for longer in the nation’s historic capital.
Using technology pioneered in York, where 11,000 similar passes are sold each year, the City Pass has been described as a “significant step forward” in the battle to detain visitors passing through the strategically-placed city, offering digitally-enabled joint ticketing between Stirling’s historic sites under different ownership, including Stirling Castle (Historic Scotland), Bannockburn (National Trust for Scotland), and the newly-reopened Old Town Jail (Stirling Council).
Geoff Morrison (32), the former marketing manager at Crieff Hydro who heads the new Stirling destination management organisation (DMO) said “The city pass is a bespoke system built for us by TWG Systems, based down in Buckinghamshire. It’s exciting technology that allows us to integrate the attraction ticketing with the transport offering, including the City Bus, a hop on-hop off service which is useful as it’s quite difficult to get around Stirling if you don’t have a car.”
“The aim has been to try to transform Stirling from being a day destination, where visitors might just go to Stirling Castle before getting back on the motorway, and packaging it up so that they do more, go and shop, consider it an overnight destination.”
“Stirling has seen a significant investment in accommodation and a substantial increase in the number of rooms, including new accommodation at Stirling University, the Colessio Hotel, the Forthside Premier Inn. The summer season offers an opportunity to significantly increase the number of visitors not just to the main attractions like the Castle, the National Wallace Monument but a lot of the secondary free attractions such as Cowane’s Hospital. This pass system allows you to promote them better.”
The new web-based City Pass, he said, was easy to manage online and allows small guests houses and newsagents to become vendors.
Launched a year ago with around £300,000 over two years by Scottish Enterprise, VisitScotland growth funding, the European Regional Development Fund and Stirling Council, Destination Stirling has financed national marketing campaigns and leveraged funding for online promotions, industry training, and help for business improvement.
Around 500 local tourism businesses participate in regular networking events, and the DMO is responsible for new printed material including an official tourism guide, plus “lots of dot-joining, improvement and promotion”
Morrison said: “It’s about engaging with industry in driving forward wider vision for Stirling, it’s very much industry led.”
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