Cooperative Development Scotland hosted a high level session in Inveraray today [15th January], bringing together key players from the tourism industry to focus on the benefits of collaboration in the interests of boosting visitor numbers to the west coast.
Those attending the event represented organisation like the Scottish Tourism Alliance, Scottish Enterprise, Highlands & Islands Enterprise (HIE) and the local chamber of commerce.
One of the sources of wasted resources in highly dispersed areas like Argyll is that businesses and organisations effectively market against each other, in competition for the attention of potential visitors.
Mid Argyll’s Heart of Argyll Tourism Alliance [HOATA], today shared its experiences at the session of how the consortium co-operative model offers a blueprint for a more effective and constructive tourism sector.
HOATA was set up in 2010 as a consortium co-operative business to encourage a collective stance and collaborative action in the industry in Argyll.
The open membership allows contributions from businesses across the remote area to network with each other, support the Alliance and showcase what visitors can expect from the region.
As an example, Mid Argyll is home to such attractions as Dunadd Fort in Kilmartin Glen, where Scotland’s ancient kings were crowned and the Scottish Beaver Trial in Knapdale, which was featured on BBC’s Springwatch and Autumnwatch.
Carron Tobin, founder member of HOATA explained to the summit how the collective approach works: ‘The consortium business model is one that is very relevant to tourism businesses in the region. Some of us have tried to market the area individually, but we’re just one lone voice in a very crowded marketplace.
‘The idea is to showcase the collective destinations of the Mid-Argyll area to boost overall visitor numbers. So an hotelier on the Crinan Canal or the manager of a historic site such as Kilmartin House Museum can reach a bigger audience through a shared collective voice and brand.
‘We are then in turn working with the umbrella, Argyll & The Isles Tourism Cooperative, which is taking a strategic approach to marketing this beautiful region and helping us to work effectively with our neighbours like Kintyre, Cowal and Oban.’
Sarah Deas, chief executive of Co-operative Development Scotland, said: ‘HOATA shows how effective a collective approach can be. We believe this offers a way forward for the tourism sector in other parts of Scotland. Our event today has proved a valuable strategic exercise.’
David Adams-McGilp, Regional Director for VisitScotland , said: ‘Scotland is in a strong position as a holiday destination but there’s no room for complacency and we need to ensure we continue to work hard and work together to make Scotland a must visit destination.
’2013 marks the Year of Natural Scotland. This is an excellent opportunity for us to showcase and enhance Scotland’s reputation as a place of outstanding beauty. The Highlands is ideally placed to capitalise on this and therefore going forward we must ensure collaboration is at the core of all our activity.’
The core of the issue is something businesses – traditionally competitive – find it hard to get.
What it’s about is the sense of collective responsibility for the area and for its offer to potential visitors. If its strongest cards are played to audiences in any medium by any member of its tourism sector, regardless of who or what operates those core attractions, everybody wins.
If the entire area and everything that makes it good to be here and can be experienced here is ‘sold’ with knowledge and excitement by every single business concerned, without worrying about giving a competitor a free front, everybody wins.
And if everyone does this, everybody wins.
The real challenge for a place like Argyll, so stacked with things to be said about it – where you can go, what you can do, what you can eat and drink, what you can experience and where you can stay – is managing so vast a choice, of homing in, on an area by area basis on a cluster of irresistibles.
The more Argyll can be presented as a supreme destination with a distinctive character and the greater the number of visitors who come to check it out, the more every single business in the area will benefit.
Collective marketing, collective effort, brings increased and shared collective reward.
Squirreling away in one’s own fortified attraction, whatever it is, marketing alone and working alone is the greatest possible waste of resource. Working together, recognising and celebrating the strengths of each others’ offers and energising visitors with the possibilities of the entire fabric of a place, creates an energy and a momentum that is far more than the sum of its parts.
The proof of this was Argyll and the Isles Tourism’s first outing last year at the national Tourism Expo. There were business folk from all parts of Argyll, like Mull, Islay, Mid Argyll, Kintyre … all sparking off each other, working together, marketing Argyll together, not their own businesses. The buzz was phenomenal. The Argyll and the Isles stand really was the only game in town – it was obviously fun and no one could stay away from it. You could have warned your hands at it.
The message Heart of Argyll Tourism brought to today’s summit could not have been more on the money.