'Team Edinburgh'

I was one of those who attended the Scotsman: Edinburgh – The Next Five Years conference (Opinion, 26 February).

The city's new promotion body, Destination Edinburgh Marketing Alliance (Dema) is still in its first year of its operations, yet has made some crucial headway in line with many of Bill Jamieson's observations. We are providing a strong, cohesive leadership voice for city promotion through a fresh business and public partnership working. Our role is to simplify and to unite by co-ordinating a central marketing ethos and common purpose through collaboration city-wide and across visit, invest, live, work and study remits.

And, as hinted by Mr Jamieson, negotiations with respect to the exploration of more formal integration of Dema with compatible organisations such as the Edinburgh Convention Bureau and Edinburgh Film Focus to provide the type of focus suggested, are well underway.

Strong leadership is indeed needed and Dema will play an increasingly important part going forward in "Team Edinburgh". We'll continue to amplify Edinburgh's amazing achievements, talent and stunning location, as well as synchronising a collective city-wide response to the challenges we need to overcome together in order to maintain Edinburgh's economic status and position as one of the most desirable destinations in the world.

KENNETH WARDROP

Chief Executive, Destination Edinburgh Marketing Alliance

Edinburgh