Published on : Friday, March 6, 2020
The new £5.5 million sponsor will help in delivering a new 10-year blueprint. It targets to change the Scottish industry into “pioneers for delivering responsible tourism.”
Nevertheless, the new strategy of national tourism which also envisages Scotland as “a world leader in 21st century tourism” by 2030 emphasizes the fact that the effect of the industry will need to be “spread more evenly around the country” and that interference will be essential to “encourage the right growth in the right areas.”
The new blueprint, entitled Scotland Outlook 2030, was built up by many industry bodies, including the biggest voice of the sector, the Scottish Tourism Alliance (STA), and VisitScotland and Scottish Enterprise, the government-funded agencies.
It confesses that the industry has had to struggle for the first time with the “global phenomenon” of overtourism, which it asserts has been immensely fuelled by social media.
It states: “Scotland has for the first time in the last few years experienced the global phenomenon of high visitor volumes in certain areas, driven by social media, which can create pressure on infrastructure, with negative impacts on local communities and widespread reporting in the media.”
“While tourism has contributed to our climate emergency, it has also become vulnerable as a result and we must now take purposeful action to halt further decline, reverse damage and bring about long term change.”