New VisitScotland site faces south

Published on Thursday 2 August 2007 00:17

A NEW website aimed at boosting the number of visitors to Scotland from the rest of the UK has been launched by the national tourism agency VisitScotland.

The new site, www.visitscotland.com/liveit, was developed at a cost of 33,000, and will cost an additional 12,000 in marketing.

It emphasises the range of events and festivals on offer in Scotland, but also features information on cultural destinations, shopping and food and drink. Further "interactive features" will be added after market testing.

The new site, the first to present a comprehensive shop window on Scotland's culture for potential visitors, represents a significant advance for the web-based marketing of Scottish tourism outside of the tourism agency's controversial partnership agreement with Etourism, the largely Austrian-owned company that hosts the accomodation-booking site VisitScotland.com.

The new site, which describes itself as "the official site of Scotland's national tourism organisation", will be prominantly linked from VisitScotland.com, which uses the same thistle logo and describes itself as "the official site of Scotland's national tourist board".

VisitScotland, which is working to stem a decline in visitor numbers and revenue from UK tourists, who comprise about 85 per cent of all visitors to Scotland, is to market the site through electronic direct mail, and a sponsorship deal with the Guardian newspaper's website, Guardian Unlimited, which claims three million daily readers.

VisitScotland will also use paid-for search-engine optimisation to bring the site to the attention of web browsers already motivated to enquire about Scotland.

VisitScotland said the site was based on the principle that affluent potential visitors who are "cold" about coming to Scotland need to be motivated by the promise of specific activities.

Tourism industry experts yesterday welcomed the new site. Ian Gardner, vice-chairman of the Scottish Tourism Forum, said: "This site is aimed at people living in London and the south-east of England, an incredibly important market for Scotland. They need lots of compelling reasons to come here.

"I think this website will create new interest and new business."