VisitScotland Update for the ETAG, Wednesday 14th September Quick Summary

Marketing: „Surprise Yourself‟ Autumn/Winter Grab a Glen - year of Active Scotland „My Scotland‟

Press and PR

In Brief

1. ‘Surprise Yourself’ - Autumn/Winter We have now entered the autumn/winter phase of „Surprise Yourself‟. Phase one of „Surprise Yourself‟ took place during the spring/summer season and promoted Scotland‟s regions. The campaign extended through all VisitScotland marketing channels from Direct Mail packs, campaign websites, partnership working to VisitScotland Information Centres and Outreach activity. Edinburgh & Lothian‟s featured heavily throughout all this activity including outdoor activity in partnership with British Airways and easyJet and Edinburgh Festivals. “Surprise Yourself” Autumn / Winter 2011 began on the 1st September to boost autumn/winter visits, attracting new and repeat visitors to Scotland‟s regions. The Surprise Yourself national website (below) takes on a new autumnal theme, which is

transferred across all surprise yourself activity. www.surprise.visitscotland.com

The campaign website contains a variety of features including a Edinburgh & Lothians regional section offering ideas for exploring the region, some of these include;

East Lothian beach activities in autumn, West Lothian past and present, Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh and the Mary Queen of Scots Trail to name a few.

National Autumn Surprise Yourself Direct Mail Packs National Autumn/Winter Direct Mail Packs have been sent to over 600,000 contacts on the VisitScotland database who have a known affinity to Scotland. Edinburgh and Lothians feature within the national mail packs (below), which are booklet

style packs of ’10 surprises’ in Scotland. Edinburgh and Lothians highlights include

Dalhousie castle, Midlothian, Edinburgh‟s Christmas Market and the National Museum of

Scotland, Edinburgh to name a few.

The National Mailers encourage consumers to visit the Surprise Yourself website to

download vouchers.

Grab a Glen - year of Active Scotland Dear Diary…

VisitScotland, last month launched its first ever interactive diary designed to promote some

of Scotland‟s best and well known as well as more surprising active pursuits.

VisitScotland has enlisted the help of top travel writer Robin McKelvie, from South

Queensferry, will write about his travels in Edinburgh & the Lothians where he will be waxing

lyrical about the local cycling, walking and climbing opportunities.

Robin will be posting online travel diaries, along with his own photos and video content,

offering a unique new way of seeing and showcasing Scotland. Users can also share

experiences, photographs and videos and influence Robin‟s trip through VisitScotland‟s

Facebook sites. This campaign makes full use of social media channel Facebook and allows

users to interact with Robin on his adventures.

Robin‟s travel diary will also host a whole range of content, from hints, tips, and maps of

Scotland, to money saving vouchers for all. The main call to action is the „Get Active Offers‟

that has over 100 offers from Activity providers throughout Scotland.

To view all the offers visit:

http://active.visitscotland.com/content/pdf/SYGrabaglenActiveOffers

Worth in excess of £825m to the Scottish economy, active pursuits are a key part of

the visitor experience. Latest statistics have shown more than 80% of visitors said

that they took part in a walk of more than 3 miles and over a third (37%) took part in

some sort of sporting activity.

Active Scotland is the second in a series of legacy years following the nation‟s successful

Homecoming event in 2009 and is designed to celebrate the fantastic natural settings and

activities that the nation has to offer.

My Scotland VisitScotland continues its partnership with the Daily Record, Daily Record (reach = 800k)

and Bauer Radio (reach = 1.7million) will continue for autumn and winter activity, offering the

ideal opportunity to promote Scotland to our own residents.

Edinburgh & Lothians has recently featured within several editions including; our

‘Best for fests’ edition in July focusing on Edinburgh’s festivals, our ‘Wilderness

awaits’ and ‘flowers of Sctoland’ edition also featured Edinburgh & Lothians.

Consumer ezines

Edinburgh & Lothians has featured heavily throughout VisitScotland programme of Consumer ezines, the most recent „Surprise Yourself‟ themed ezines sent out to over 600,000 warm contacts on VisitScotland‟s database.

Hotel Du Vin, Edinburgh and Kingsfield Golf Centre, Linlithgow featured as the main enewsletter competitions in July/August. The Bank of Scotland Imaginate Festival and the Ladies Scottish open in East Lothian, to name a few were also featured within recent ezines.

International e-newsletters Edinburgh & Lothians have also been at large in communications to consumers and media in our international markets. VisitScotland‟s suite of international consumer e-newsletters was sent to almost a million potential visitors around the world in nine languages. August‟s enewsletter themed „Thrilling autumn adventures in Scotland‟ features the Arthurs Seat and the Royal Mile in Edinburgh.

Edinburgh also featured as the main banner image of our international enewsletter, sent to

thousands of contacts this month.

EventScotland EventScotland is the national events agency. It is the directorate of VisitScotland that works to generate, bid for, attract and sustain events that will drive tourism and create international profile for Scotland. EventScotland‟s funding commitment to events within Edinburgh & Lothians is supporting Games of Consequence, Midlothian, Lammermuir Festival, East Lothian and the Great Edinburgh Run to name a few.

International Marketing SCOTS programme training programme The International Marketing department works closely with intermediaries, such as travel agencies and tour operators to promote a strong brand for Scotland overseas.

A U.S. travel agency recently got in touch with our International Marketing team to give them

some excellent feedback from two very happy customers, who spent time in Edinburgh

during their trip to Scotland.

The agent concerned had previously visited Scotland on one of the familiarisation trips

organised by VisitScotland International Marketing and graduated from VisitScotland‟s online

education programme called the SCOTS (Specialist Counsellor on Travel to Scotland)

Programme, in which travel agents can become SCOTSagents - qualified experts in all

things Scottish. SCOTS agents are our frontline sales staff around the world.

Press and PR The strength of achieving positive PR can never be underestimated. Our award winning corporate and consumer PR teams successfully achieve coverage within fantastic titles in order to reach wide audiences throughout the UK and beyond! Highlights include:

Transat Tours Fam Trip VisitScotland worked with Transat Tours, a Canadian Tour operator to bring 20 of their top selling travel agents on a three day fam trip to Scotland, the agents visited Edinburgh and Edinburgh Castle as part of their stay. VisitScotland hosted a welcome breakfast providing the opportunity to promote the benefits of the SCOTS programme and showcase our Focus Year activity.

Edinburgh Festival - Press Trip A journalist, writing for several well-known German publications including Abenteuer und Reisen, DB Mobil, WAZ and Swiss and Austrian publications and compiles the German version of the Marco Polo travel guide www.marcopolo.de that will be translated and published in several other European countries, recently visited Edinburgh‟s Festivals .

Agencia EFE Trip - Press Trip

Agencia EFE - the world‟s largest Spanish language news agency is visiting Scotland to cover Edinburgh as a city of festivals. The journalist will be writing several features on the festivals, including a destination feature on Edinburgh as well as making a short video report. Features issued by Agencia EFE are picked up all across the world.

China Central TV - Press Visit China‟s national broadcaster, CCTV, visited Edinburgh in August to report on Edinburgh Festivals.

Shanghai’s World Traveller Media Group Press trip Members of the Shanghai Golf Association visited Scotland along with a film crew from Shanghai‟s World Traveller Media Group - the only media group in China‟s travel industry that incorporates TV programs, magazines, guidebooks, website and a Member‟s Club. It integrates world‟s travel information and industry resources to provide high and middle level Chinese travellers with the most professional up-to-date, comprehensive and practical outbound travel information, products and

services. The group visited Edinburgh, as part of their visit. Coverage will be broadcast to tens of millions of people throughout China.

People’s Daily / World Affairs Pictorial - Press Visit People‟s Daily (Circ 2 M) and World Affairs Pictorial (Circ 300,000) visited Scotland in August and will visit Edinburgh as part of their visit, reporting on the Edinburgh Festivals.

India Today - Press Visit India Today (circ 200,000) visited Scotland in July and visited Edinburgh as part of their stay. As part of the feature, lunch was held at Oloroso and Celebrity Chef Tony Singh was interviewed for a profile piece featuring within India Today.

Outlook Traveller - Press Visit India‟s Outlook Traveller (circulation 1.5 M), visited Scotland and Edinburgh in July, focusing on touring, islands and cities themes.

Times of India -Press Visit The Times of India, visited Scotland in July and visited Edinburgh as part of their trip. The feature will focus around touring and whisky.

Beijing TV - Press Visit Beijing TV visited Scotland in July to film in Edinburgh as part of their visit with a focus upon royal, romantic and touring themes for their „Travel Around‟ programme. BTV is one of the biggest commercial broadcasters in China, and any subsequent footage will be broadcast to over 10 million people in China itself.

PR: VisitScotland Media newsletter VisitScotland‟s International PR media newsletter goes out every 2 months to approx 2,000 media contacts . Latest editions have included both „New openings‟ featuring the National Museum Of Scotland, Edinburgh and‟ Potty for Scotland‟ identifying locations across Scotland identified in the Harry Potter films which included several locations in Edinburgh and Dalhousie Castle, Midlothian

VOX, German X-Factor, Judge's House Filming at Lennoxlove Television show X-Factor (circ. 2,910,000) brought the final contestants to Scotland to film an episode for the 'judges' homes' section of the show's format. The programme features Edinburgh. Media value is estimated €92,475 for 30 seconds of coverage. Corporate coverage was also achieved on the BBC website and in the Sun.

Mary of Guise Pan European press trip To promote the opening of Stirling Castle's palace, following its £12million redevelopment, this trip followed the Mary of Guise Trail and visit Stirling Castle, as well as Edinburgh Castle and Linlithgow Palace. A pan-market trip, VisitScotland invited European journalists from 4 key markets to participate (France, Belgium, Spain, Poland).

PR Germany: Radwelt Cycling press trip Radwelt (circ. 80,000) will write two articles: - One about cycling through Scotland on National Cycle Route 1, Coast & Castles North from Edinburgh to Aberdeen, 275 km, 6 days, around 45 km per day.

Route development Jet2 Budapest - Edinburgh Route To promote the Jet2 launch of flight route Budapest - Edinburgh VisitScotland is supporting the trip of 6 journalists to Edinburgh to raise the awareness of Edinburgh and Scotland in the Hungarian press.

In brief: Tourism Intelligence Scotland Destination Toolkit.

A new toolkit, produced by Tourism Intelligence Scotland (a joint venture between VisitScotland, Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise) outlines the practical steps that individual areas of Scotland should take to grow their market and realise their full tourism potential. 5 Steps to Destination Development includes a range of case studies,

practical challenges and resources designed to inspire businesses in local areas to join forces and help turn their vision of a great tourism area into reality. The toolkit explains how, by bringing businesses with a common purpose together, areas can work collectively to improve their visitor offer. The toolkit is available free to registered users at www.tourism-intelligence.co.uk

Manuela Calchini Regional Director - Edinburgh & Lothians