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July 6, 2021
Community-led tourism
Scotland’s tourism ‘offer’ has probably never experienced so much home-based scrutiny with the whole country seeking some local respite from their locked down existence of the past year. The extent to which communities are actively engaged in tourism is reckoned to be under-researched as a distinct sector but recent work by Senscot suggests it plays a very significant role, particularly in rural areas, as a catalyst for small business development and local area regeneration. Senscot are also currently trialing new approaches to community led tourism in Brechin and Girvan.
What we mean by Community Led Tourism
Community tourism puts local people at the centre of the decision-making process to produce a tourism offering which benefits the whole community, not just a few organisations. It looks to build a strategy which allows small, local organisations and businesses to capture the footfall of visitors who are attracted to larger, popular local assets.
Encouraging local communities to take ownership of tourism in their area can help preserve historic and cultural heritage, improve management of land and assets for community use, encourage the development of new business opportunities, and improve the quality of services and sustainability of the area; socially, economically and environmentally. Tourism can be used as a tool for regeneration – connecting local people and local businesses in the development of their area.
SENScot, working closely with national and local partners, will be providing direct support to the communities of Brechin, in Angus, and Girvan, In South Ayrshire, to develop their tourism offer and put community at the heart of the decision making process.
2020 has been a catastrophic year for the Scottish tourism industry and, with many businesses struggling, we have seen communities across the country come together to provide support to one another and take a lead in local decision making.
The Project
This project will support the development of community led tourism action plans in the two towns, keeping community needs at the heart of the project and connecting with local partners from the public, private and public sectors. SENSCot will be working with our delivery partner, Creetown Initiatives, and with local partners to set out a clear vision and objectives, assessing existing community tourism provision, and identifying opportunities for further development.
Sustainability will be considered throughout the process – we will work with the communities to develop businesses opportunities, create new projects and build on existing activity this will include identifying funding and investment.
SENScot is delighted to be working with the two communities and to gathering evidence of the effectiveness of giving communities greater control over their tourism offering – we are ambitious for this project and the potential for rolling this out across Scotland.