Staying out in front: interview with Malcolm Roughead of VisitScotland

With Scotland having played host to two of the world’s biggest sporting events – the Commonwealth Games and the Ryder Cup – you might expect 2014 would be a hard act to follow. Has it been difficult to maintain the momentum?

“It’s been the opposite, actually,” says Malcolm Roughead, chief executive of VisitScotland. “What has materialised is that 2014 really was a showcase for Scotland and what we’re seeing this year is in the UK market, our largest, the number of visitors to the end of July is up by seven per cent, spend is up 27 per cent, so the trend of growth is continuing on from 2014.”

And with international visitor numbers also up seven per cent, the GVA contribution of tourism increasing by 34 per cent over the last five years and an eight per cent increase in new tourism jobs between 2012 and 2014, the industry is going from strength to strength.

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And it’s not just Glasgow that has benefited, although long-term investment there has paid off. As well as the high-profile events such as the Commonwealth Games and the Ryder Cup, there were over 1,000 different events the length and breadth of Scotland during the 2014 Year of Homecoming, ranging from the MTV Awards to local community events.

“If you look at the numbers and the growth that’s been recorded in this year, it’s actually been felt in more rural areas, which is good, so people who may have come last year are coming back, branching out and looking around different parts of the country,” says Roughead.

The final figure for tourism in 2014 was in the region of £9.8bn, but Roughead is keen to emphasise how much more the country gained in terms of a lasting legacy. “What we would take out of 2014, we always talk about the capacity, the capability, confidence and then credibility, and those are all important,” he says.

“In terms of being able to deliver the big occasion we’re in a far better place,” says Roughead. This is not just because of new venues such as the Hydro and the Emirates Arena and investment in existing venues like the SECC and the EICC, but that the events industry in Scotland has moved forward, because success brings confidence.

One of the other legacies of 2014 has been the awareness of more businesses that they form part of the tourism economy and next year’s Year of Innovation, Architecture and Design (see panel) looks set to continue this, bringing in sectors which may not have traditionally thought of themselves as being part of the tourism industry, such as universities, architects and designers. “We’ll have more people who are going to be engaged in it and we’ll have a very different flavour to the whole year because it is so different and, dare I say it, so innovative,” says Roughead.

So, is there a secret to Scotland’s tourism success? “If there was a magic wand, we’d wave it!” he laughs. Roughead puts the buoyant tourism economy down to a number of factors including investment in infrastructure and connectivity – both physical and digital, improved customer service, targeted marketing and strategic partnerships.

“There’s been a lot of work done around the country trying to make sure that people understand the impact and that what’s good for local citizens is good for visitors and vice versa, so there’s a synergy there. And all of that has led to more investment in terms of hotels and venues and restaurants and that whole night-time economy, and that doesn’t happen because people take a risk, it happens because they actually see the long-term sustainability of the industry is there and therefore they’re investing for the long term.”

In terms of physical connectivity, there has been huge growth in the number of flights into Scotland over the last few years, with an outer ring of hub airports from Helsinki to Qatar, an inner ring from key European airports such as Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Paris and a new direct route from Chicago opening up the  west coast of North America. There has also been “impressive” growth in point-to-point city routes, which allow people to fly directly into Scotland, says Roughead.

Strategic national and international partnerships have borne fruit as well. Within Scotland, the National Tourism Development Framework – a partnership between VisitScotland and local authorities that looks at where investment is required – is ensuring that spend on infrastructure is demand-led and that councils can have more confidence in their planning decisions. This has been “incredibly successful”, says Roughead, with around £10bn being invested in tourism infrastructure across the country at the moment.

Internationally, Scotland is on the global stage as never before. VisitScotland works with international partners in a number of countries and regions including Sweden, Norway, Malta, Flanders, Northern Ireland, the Basque Country, Malawi, Iceland, Nova Scotia, Alberta, Queensland and New Zealand on best practice in the areas of quality, information, marketing and events.

Post-2014, other countries are increasingly looking at what Scotland is doing. VisitScotland is sharing the experience of hosting the Commonwealth Games with Queensland, the next host; has a memorandum of understanding with New Zealand on events; and is working with Sweden and Norway on quality, which, says Roughead, is “not about being cheap, it’s about making sure that people’s expectations are met or exceeded.”

The knowledge exchange isn’t just one way. Accessible tourism for people with disabilities and social tourism for people from disadvantaged backgrounds are areas that VisitScotland has been working on for the last two or three years. It is consulting with disabilities groups on both physical and online accessibility, as well as looking to Flanders, a recognised world leader in these areas, for examples of good practice.

“Why shouldn’t people with disabilities be able to enjoy the type of holiday that we would take for granted?” Roughead asks. He’s been heartened by the industry response so far, he says, although it will take time for accessible tourism to become mainstream, as with sustainable tourism when VisitScotland first started promoting that a few years ago.

The tourism industry thrives on new ideas and is often at the cutting edge, embracing new technology and trends ahead of other industries. Consider, for example, the success of TripAdvisor, Airbnb and Uber. Shareable digital content is a particular area of opportunity for tourism and VisitScotland has an ambitious target of increasing the reach of its digital content from 20 million people to 500 million through strategic content partnerships, creating once and sharing many times. It’s about being “disruptive”, according to Roughead, in the sense of getting in front of people, with the key issue being producing winning content “and that’s one thing we’re not short of.”

However, that doesn’t mean mass-produced content. “What people are looking for is very much authenticity, they’re looking for localised content, they’re looking for real people, so we have to make sure that local areas in Scotland are part of this, that we co-create,” he says. With this in mind, VisitScotland is developing ‘community toolkits’ so people across the country can produce content to broadcast through the various channels.

Key to this expansion in digital is also making sure that Scotland’s individual tourism businesses have a strong online presence. With 65 per cent of bookings made on the internet and over 80 per cent of people looking online for information, this is clearly vital. “Understanding digital is an extension of what businesses already do, namely, look after their customers. What’s different is that visitors are controlling the channels, they’re controlling the information they want, and if we’re not part of that then we’re going to miss out,” says Roughead.

Although some small businesses may be nervous about getting started on the web, it can be as simple as being able to transact electronically and keeping a listing up date. For Roughead it’s clear: “Spend an hour a day and you’ve got the potential for global business, why wouldn’t you do that?”

Going forward, the successful themed years are set to continue, following on from the ‘Winning Years’ in the build up to 2014 and this year’s popular Year of Food and Drink, with 2016’s Year of Innovation, Architecture and Design, the Year of History, Heritage and Archaeology in 2017 and the Year of Young People in 2018. There are also more high-profile events on the calendar including the Turner Prize next month, the 2018 European Sports Championships, co-hosted by Glasgow and Berlin, and the Solheim Cup, recently secured for Scotland by VisitScotland and the Scottish Government in 2019.

Roughead is bullish, but he won’t be resting on his laurels. “Credibility is key and it’s building on the fact that we are world leaders in what we do. It’s credibility that allows us to go out there in one of the world’s most competitive markets and compete against other destinations who see the economic benefits and social benefits of tourism as much as we do.

“We will continue to compete and demonstrate that we deliver world-beating visitor experiences every time.”