Campaign hoped to rebuild Shetland’s ‘devastated’ tourism industry
Andrew Hirst
A nationwide campaign encouraging responsible tourism is hoped to aid the recovery of Shetland’s “devastated” visitor economy.
VisitScotland’s £124,000 campaign, which aims to raise awareness about the importance of exploring outdoors responsibly, launched last week targeting a homegrown audience.
Steve Mathieson. VisitScotland’s Shetland manager, said: “To be clear, we are not encouraging travel now, but are shifting towards a ‘stop dreaming and start planning’ message, along with a set of communications on responsible tourism which puts the welfare of communities and our natural environment at the heart of our approach.
“We aim to preserve Scotland’s natural beauty for future generations and work with communities to bring the benefits of tourism to everyone.
“Balance is key so we want to make sure we are helping tourism businesses to survive and recover, while building toward a responsible future.
“Shetland tourism has been devastated over the past year and this is one of the first steps in our rebuilding process.”
John M Scott
The current campaign for a second independence referendum, and the rise of anti-English racism won’t help to rebuild Scotland’s or Shetland’s tourism industry.
Fiona Leiper
I experienced anti-English racism by 2 Shetlanders and it wasn’t pleasant. That said, the many other beautiful Shetland folk I met more than made up for their bad manners and rudeness! I would encourage everyone to visit Shetland if they can; it is one of the most beautiful places in the world 🙂
Graham Sutherland
Tourism has been devastated throughout Britain. Shetland is one of the few visionary areas in Britain where virtual visitors are able to visit and re-visit in real-time https://tinyurl.com/yy5s3pxa.
Shetland has thirteen live-stream high-quality PTZ cameras showing the islands in real-time. In 2019 these cameras attracted around 3,000 viewers a day from all over the world. In 2020 this number will have been much larger due to Covid travel restrictions. A recent academic study showed that almost 70% of people who viewed travel cams were likely to visit the location of these cams after travel restrictions are lifted. VisitScotland and the Scottish Government should consider making grants available to tourism businesses to install live scenic cams around Scotland if they seriously want to restore inbound tourism to pre Covid levels.
Rowana McKenzie
It’s true — I’m in California and I regularly have viewed the Shetland webcams during this long pandemic shutdown. I dream about coming to Shetland and discovering where some of my ancestors came from — also watching the TV series “Shetland” and seeing the stunning beauty of the archipelago doesn’t hurt!