Scotland urged to cash in on sports 'refugees' from London Olympics

Published on Wednesday 3 March 2010 21:55

SCOTLAND'S tourism industry was yesterday urged to target Londoners keen to leave the city during the 2012 Olympics.

Senior figures at a major conference in Edinburgh were told that locals trying to avoid a "packed, dirty and nightmarish" London could bring an unprecedented boost north of the Border.

Delegates heard estimates that some 300 million of economic benefit was expected to be displaced from London, including overseas journalists, visitors extending their stay either side of the Games and Londoners looking to get out of the city.

VisitScotland's chief executive Philip Riddle said the agency was aware that the Olympics may be viewed as "an irritant" by people in London and that there were clear opportunities to promote Scotland as somewhere to "get away from it all".

He told The Scotsman that the nation's culture and heritage offered a "natural flipside" to the Olympics, which overlap with the staging of Edinburgh's major summer festivals.

Speaking at the annual Scottish Tourism Forum conference, Bernard Donoghue, head of corporate affairs at VisitBritain, said the Olympics offered a "once in a lifetime opportunity" for the industry in Scotland.

"There is 300m up for grabs for the rest of Britain. There are clear precedents from previous Olympics, in places like Athens and Sydney, where there is huge displacement from the host city.

"There will be a lot of Londoners who will want to get the hell out of there.

"VisitScotland is trying to tackle that already with its advance planning for 2012. It is a huge area of potential opportunity for the industry in Scotland."

Mr Riddle said: "We have to be a bit careful, but we are aware that there will be some people who will see the Olympics as an irritant and something to get away from.

"It's just one of a number of areas that we're looking at."

Meanwhile, Scottish tourism's new figurehead warned yesterday that the industry faced a "long haul" to withstand the full impact of the economic downturn.

Mike Cantlay, who takes over as chairman of VisitScotland next month, urged businesses to grasp short-term opportunities which the current economic climate threw up. But he admitted the industry would have to embrace bolder change than it had in the past and display strong leadership over the next few years.

Mr Cantlay, currently chairman of the Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park Authority and a previous chairman of Scottish Enterprise Forth Valley, said: "The reality of the recession is beginning to bite and it is clear this is going to be a long haul."

FEEDING FRENZY

A YEAR-LONG celebration of Scotland's food and drink will be the follow-up to Scotland's Homecoming celebrations, it emerged yesterday. Food festivals, markets and new events are expected to be part of the biggest promotional drive yet for the nation's produce. Leading chefs, hotels, bars, restaurants and cafs will take part in the campaign, which will start in May. The government wants to boost the value of Scotland's food and drink from 9.5 billion to 12.5bn by 2017.