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Johnstone's View 12th September 2008

Whatever way you look at it, tourism is an important industry to Scotland. When you look at it a little closer however, the reasons for people to come to our country from overseas, and the places within it which they choose to visit, are quite diverse.  Some come to events like the Edinburgh festival then never set foot outside our Capital city. Others come here exclusively for the golf courses; others come to trace their Scottish ancestry, real or imagined. One thing is certain, that they are an important part of our economy and many a Scottish job depends on them.

Sad then that with the international downturn in the economy, coupled to the increasing cost of travel, next year, billed as the ‘Year of the Homecoming’ and timed to coincide with the 250th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns, may not be the success that everyone was hoping for. I think we could all learn a lot by looking at the experience of ‘Tartan Day’.

This event was originally conceived in Canada in 1991 and was subsequently established as a public holiday in the United States to commemorate the contribution that emigrant Scots have made to the development of the USA.  The celebration takes place on the 6th of April each year, the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Arbroath, with which historians variously associate the subsequent American Declaration of Independence.

Since the establishment of the Scottish Parliament, our successive governments have thrown themselves into the Tartan Day experience, spending ever-increasing amounts of taxpayers money on taking plane loads of Scottish politicians to New York every year to participate in ‘the mother of all junkets’. For years now I have argued that if Tartan Day is about encouraging tourists to visit Scotland, then a higher profile for the event here in Scotland would do more to attract Americans and other people of Scottish ancestry to visit Scotland.

Instead, successive Scottish government's have chosen to spend money on flying politicians and staff over to America and invested our cash in promoting the New York event.  The result has been a major boost for tourism in New York at the expense of the Scottish industry which has seen some pretty hard times over recent years.

I have previously declined to travel to America for this event, preferring instead to take part in the Scottish celebrations and 2009 will be no different. Having seen what Tartan Day events can do for the towns which have chosen to take part, I would argue that the world wide promotion of 2009 as the Year of the Homecoming has the potential to deliver the boost our tourism industry needs to transfer attention to this side of the Atlantic, acting as the focus for promoting our common heritage and ensuring that the North East can reap its share of the rewards.

So what do we have to sell to this potential influx of visitors? A great deal in my opinion. There is our association with Robert Burns himself, not born in the Mearns but certainly with his roots in our back yard. Then there are the thousands of people who can trace their ancestry back to the towns and villages of Kincardineshire. You don’t need to be all that old to remember the days, before the discovery of oil in the North Sea, when our biggest export, by some margin, was our people. As our communities prepare to be swamped by another wave of house building, this may well be the last chance for some of our ‘ex-pats’ to see the area as they remember it.

And while our world-class golfing and leisure facilities are not, yet, ready to welcome the world’s golfers, there are enough of these features in other parts of the North East to attract wealthy visitors to our back yard. They, or perhaps members of their families, may want to visit the Mearns and learn something about their own history.

So, would this be selling out? Would it only be the start of a process which will turn us into a 21st century Disneyland with tartan trimmings? Not a bit of it. What these visitors want is the real Scotland, not ‘Brig’o’Doon’. They want to connect.

What a pity that Alex Salmond and his government of jet setters would rather spend the promotional budget on another trip to New York, leaving our guesthouses and tourist businesses to fend for themselves. A little support would have gone a long way, but alas, it is probably, already, too late.