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I thought I'd start this thread to say what I think is wrong with the Scottish Travel Trade and see where it might take us.
I see the problems in 3 areas...
1. The web sites
An old sales adage is (A)ttention (I)nterest (D)esire (C)lose
First you need to get the prospects (A)ttention.
Then you need to develop their (I)nterest in your proposal.
Then you need to create a (D)esire for your proposal.
And then you need to (C)lose the sale.
It just seems to me that everyone is trying to sell you accommodation or tours before they have created a desire in the person to want to come to Scotland in the first place.
Most travel web sites are brochures. Note that I say "most" so that doesn't mean all.
Over the many years I have been running the Electric Scotland site I have had a huge amount of email which essentially says "Having read the content on your site it has developed in me a (D)esire to have a holiday in Scotland".
And so I have gone through the Attention, Interest and Desire aspects but now to (C)lose the sale. Problem is that I don't sell accommodation or do tours of Scotland and so I have no sale to (C)lose.
What I take out of this is that Scottish travel web sites need to do much more about making a case for building in content so that people (D)esire to organize a holiday in Scotland or to book accommodation or a tour.
This means that each organization needs to "sell" their area of Scotland so that people will want to come. I see little evidence that most web sites do this. They should be asking themselves... "Why should someone wish to come to my area of Scotland?" Then they should build content on their web sites to meet that question.
We already know that some 70% of visitors go to Scotland to touch base with their roots. So genealogy will be one of the reasons. General history will be another. Culture will be another. Clan connections will be yet another.
Photographs of the area can also attract visitors.
I have said for many years that every hotel, B & B, Guest House, etc. should build pages on their web site that can show the visitor all the things they could do by staying at their accommodation.
Like I did that when I stayed at the Dunalastair Hotel. Most days I was there I went out to do different day's out in the area. As I went out I took loads of pictures while driving the roads and I added comments about what I experienced.
So my suggestion is that each accommodation site does something similar. If they did that then they could have dozens of web pages each showing a different aspect of the area. Like focus on scenary on a variety of day trips around the area. Then do some historic tours. Try out a golfing tour. A fishing tour. A cycling tour. A shopping tour. A pony trekking tour, etc.
And so by building this information visitors can get an idea of all the things they could do just by staying at your accommodation.
Then we get to the pictures. I'm quite sad about all the wee pictures we see on travel web sites. I suggest that each picture you take around your area should be no less that 1000 pixels in width and larger if need be. You can then thumbnail each picture to around 294 pixels which is large enough to make a decent small picture but all of them when clicked on would bring up the much larger picture.
A picture tells a thousand words but a wee picture really doesn't tell you anything at all.
Then when you get down to Tour opertors it's really the same thing. We want to know more about what the tour offers so do a picture tour of your tours. It seems that mosty Tour operators do not want to do this because they think no-one will want to go on the tour if they show you all about it. That's actually quite wrong as I get so many emails in saying... "I know we want to go to X but that will only take a day or two at the most... where else could I go and what else would be worth seeing?"
And so I say to the Travel trade... get up a lot more content and many more big pictures and if you can add vidoes then so much the better. Make your web site a real sales tool.
2. Highland Games
I know there are some 300 Highland Games in North America each year and also many Scottish festivals and Celtic Festivals. And a lot of countries around the world also have them such as Belgium, France, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, etc.
I know of no other ethnic group that enjoys so many events all over the world and yet Scotland is rarely represented by any local Scottish travel organization. Even taking just a portion of what Visit Scotland spends would fund a local prescense at all these events.
To me this is a horrible waste of an amazing opportunity to promote the Scottish Travel Trade around the world.
3. Clans
The fact is that many people around the world are passionate about their clan and family connections. It is in fact rare that any mention of clans is made on most travel web sites. Yet when you attend a Highland Games in the world there are always some clan tents at the event and often many of them. I know when I attended the Fergus Games in Ontario, Canada there were over 50 of them.
I also got involved in organizing the MacIntyre Clan Gathering in Scotland and to be frank most of the work was in finding people accommodation. It is very rare that you see an accommodation site even mentioning that they are in a Clan area. I would certainly urge all accommodation sites to work together to build content on any clan that is within reach of their accommodation. And part of that content should be pictures.
When I was in Newtonmore the Clan MacPherson had their own museum. I was given a copy of the Clan MacPherson map and took that to drive around the area and take pictures. None of this is rocket science.
However if you have accommodation in a clan or family area then why not discuss with others in the area how you could do something to feature a clan? You could then put out proposals to the various clan societies about arranging a clan gathering. Perhaps you could also work with a small tour company about doing a clan tour or indeed offer one yourself.
Summary
And so what I say to the Travel Trade in Scotland is that you must work harder and smarter if you are to make a significant impact on bringing in more people to Scotland.
Should you have any thoughts and ideas on how the Travel Trade in Scotland can do better I'd love to get your thoughts.
Alastair
I see the problems in 3 areas...
1. The web sites
An old sales adage is (A)ttention (I)nterest (D)esire (C)lose
First you need to get the prospects (A)ttention.
Then you need to develop their (I)nterest in your proposal.
Then you need to create a (D)esire for your proposal.
And then you need to (C)lose the sale.
It just seems to me that everyone is trying to sell you accommodation or tours before they have created a desire in the person to want to come to Scotland in the first place.
Most travel web sites are brochures. Note that I say "most" so that doesn't mean all.
Over the many years I have been running the Electric Scotland site I have had a huge amount of email which essentially says "Having read the content on your site it has developed in me a (D)esire to have a holiday in Scotland".
And so I have gone through the Attention, Interest and Desire aspects but now to (C)lose the sale. Problem is that I don't sell accommodation or do tours of Scotland and so I have no sale to (C)lose.
What I take out of this is that Scottish travel web sites need to do much more about making a case for building in content so that people (D)esire to organize a holiday in Scotland or to book accommodation or a tour.
This means that each organization needs to "sell" their area of Scotland so that people will want to come. I see little evidence that most web sites do this. They should be asking themselves... "Why should someone wish to come to my area of Scotland?" Then they should build content on their web sites to meet that question.
We already know that some 70% of visitors go to Scotland to touch base with their roots. So genealogy will be one of the reasons. General history will be another. Culture will be another. Clan connections will be yet another.
Photographs of the area can also attract visitors.
I have said for many years that every hotel, B & B, Guest House, etc. should build pages on their web site that can show the visitor all the things they could do by staying at their accommodation.
Like I did that when I stayed at the Dunalastair Hotel. Most days I was there I went out to do different day's out in the area. As I went out I took loads of pictures while driving the roads and I added comments about what I experienced.
So my suggestion is that each accommodation site does something similar. If they did that then they could have dozens of web pages each showing a different aspect of the area. Like focus on scenary on a variety of day trips around the area. Then do some historic tours. Try out a golfing tour. A fishing tour. A cycling tour. A shopping tour. A pony trekking tour, etc.
And so by building this information visitors can get an idea of all the things they could do just by staying at your accommodation.
Then we get to the pictures. I'm quite sad about all the wee pictures we see on travel web sites. I suggest that each picture you take around your area should be no less that 1000 pixels in width and larger if need be. You can then thumbnail each picture to around 294 pixels which is large enough to make a decent small picture but all of them when clicked on would bring up the much larger picture.
A picture tells a thousand words but a wee picture really doesn't tell you anything at all.
Then when you get down to Tour opertors it's really the same thing. We want to know more about what the tour offers so do a picture tour of your tours. It seems that mosty Tour operators do not want to do this because they think no-one will want to go on the tour if they show you all about it. That's actually quite wrong as I get so many emails in saying... "I know we want to go to X but that will only take a day or two at the most... where else could I go and what else would be worth seeing?"
And so I say to the Travel trade... get up a lot more content and many more big pictures and if you can add vidoes then so much the better. Make your web site a real sales tool.
2. Highland Games
I know there are some 300 Highland Games in North America each year and also many Scottish festivals and Celtic Festivals. And a lot of countries around the world also have them such as Belgium, France, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, etc.
I know of no other ethnic group that enjoys so many events all over the world and yet Scotland is rarely represented by any local Scottish travel organization. Even taking just a portion of what Visit Scotland spends would fund a local prescense at all these events.
To me this is a horrible waste of an amazing opportunity to promote the Scottish Travel Trade around the world.
3. Clans
The fact is that many people around the world are passionate about their clan and family connections. It is in fact rare that any mention of clans is made on most travel web sites. Yet when you attend a Highland Games in the world there are always some clan tents at the event and often many of them. I know when I attended the Fergus Games in Ontario, Canada there were over 50 of them.
I also got involved in organizing the MacIntyre Clan Gathering in Scotland and to be frank most of the work was in finding people accommodation. It is very rare that you see an accommodation site even mentioning that they are in a Clan area. I would certainly urge all accommodation sites to work together to build content on any clan that is within reach of their accommodation. And part of that content should be pictures.
When I was in Newtonmore the Clan MacPherson had their own museum. I was given a copy of the Clan MacPherson map and took that to drive around the area and take pictures. None of this is rocket science.
However if you have accommodation in a clan or family area then why not discuss with others in the area how you could do something to feature a clan? You could then put out proposals to the various clan societies about arranging a clan gathering. Perhaps you could also work with a small tour company about doing a clan tour or indeed offer one yourself.
Summary
And so what I say to the Travel Trade in Scotland is that you must work harder and smarter if you are to make a significant impact on bringing in more people to Scotland.
Should you have any thoughts and ideas on how the Travel Trade in Scotland can do better I'd love to get your thoughts.
Alastair
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