A COMPANY intended to play a key role in the development of Scottish tourism, and in which Grampian Enterprise invested #156,000 last year, is going into liquidation.

Activities Holidays Scotland Ltd was the marketing and central reservations com- pany at the ``front end'' of a bid to double the value of activity holidays to Grampian's economy to #40m in four years.

On Tuesday a meeting of the creditors of the company will be held at the London offices of insolvency practitioner David Rubin.

Last night Mr Dave Swarbrick, head of tourism for Grampian Enterprise, said they were not ``totally clear'' on the details but they had been informed two or three weeks ago by accountants called in to look at the company and its sister company, Activities Corporate Events, that there were financial difficulties.

He said small activities companies with from two to six staff found it difficult to market themselves and Activities Holidays Scotland was set up to try to bring together a package which could be sold. They had produced a brochure and were providing a central booking mechanism initially for Grampian and Speyside activity providers but it was a pilot project which it was hoped would be expanded to the whole of Scotland.

He said considerable infrastructure had been established as part of the move to develop activity holidays and they had carried out a great deal of work with the providers.

``We are looking at this as a hiccup rather than a disaster,'' he said.

He confirmed that Grampian Enterprise had invested #156,000 in the company and said Activity Corporate Events, the south of England sister company, had invested #100,000.

He said anyone who had booked a holiday through the company had had their deposit refunded.

It was not anticipated that any activity holiday providers would be significantly affected by the problems and none had been jeopardised.

``This was the last component in the scheme and it is easy to replace,'' he said.