When we talk about community led tourism and our vision for the future, we are talking about needing a radical shift in mindset and for visitors, business, public agencies and government as well as communities themselves to all change their mindsets.  Our national tourism strategy seeks responsible tourism for a sustainable future.  This means putting our people, places and planet to the fore.

We are conscious for some this may feel like it flies in the face of the basic principles of tourism and hospitality… Tourism is all about the visitor isn’t it?  Which ties in with the classic hospitality mantra ‘the customer is always right’?

However we believe these days are gone.  In an era where we need to focus on responsible tourism, we believe tourism has to be about added value for the host destination – its people and its places. It has to be worth their while welcoming visitors and tourism should help make them a better place to live, work and visit.  It has to benefit their environment, not erode it.  If it isn’t giving something of value back … we are talking about extraction.  Is that in line with  the UN Sustainable Development Goals?

One of our starting points is to ask visitors to adopt the mindset of being a temporary local.  For visitors to slow down and take time to consider what has made that community what it is today and understand what is important to them and how their visit can help that community.  By taking time to do this the visitor will have a much deeper appreciation of what makes locals tick and also be in a position to do something that will make a difference, which leaves everyone feeling good about life. We have had great fun building our www.belocal.scot website aimed at ethical travellers.

If we then turn to the community.  Visitor experiences happen in a place – and that place is more often than not home to a group of local people, a geographic community… unless of course it’s a wilderness experience!  A visitor destination is a geographic community whether a city or town, a village, an island or a glen.  The destination may be geared up and ready for visitors with parking, toilets, cafes and places to stay – or it may not. And this could be an opportunity for a community to provide these services, and in so doing be able to manage how tourism plays out locally and start to use revenue earned to tackle other issues they face.

Fundamentally tourism is an important means to an end and a mechanism for tackling known issues and opportunities identified through place planning and community action planning. It brings revenue into a community that can then be recycled.  It often isn’t seen in this light – yet – but there are numerous examples to demonstrate what this change in mindset can bring.

My go to example is Callander where I stay and where I am a trustee of the Callander Youth Project.  We own what was the Bridgend Hotel which we converted into a hostel several years ago, have a function suite and also built 3 pods plus an all abilities pod during Covid.  We did this so we could offer training for young people to give them life skills and equip them to work in local tourism and hospitality businesses with modern apprenticeship training.  We offer them the real living wage and use the premises for all our youth work.  This is just a glimpse of what we do but for us tourism is a means to an end – retaining young people in our town and giving them life and professional skills to work in tourism and hospitality locally.  Many of them have actually gone on to work in other sectors – including one being a butcher, one working with a dog trainer and another is now a janitor at the high school.

At a community level, our latest activity has been rolling out our Press Pause Programme, originally piloted with the North Highland Initiative and now delivered in more than 40 communities across Scotland.  This workshop based programme brings community and business interests together in the same room to explore what is and isn’t working and what could be done better or differently.  This is helping communities that feel overwhelmed, those that feel by-passed where visitors pass through but are not stopping, and those that are economically fragile and don’t yet feel that they are even on the visitor radar.  Read more here https://www.scoto.co.uk/resources/press-pause/ .

Then we turn to the industry. Recent research has shown that the Scottish Economy doesn’t measure the impact  of the third sector. Yet in tourism most of our  heritage centres and  highland gatherings are provided by local charities and it is communities and local volunteers who are now providing toilets and visitor information. In this scenario, more and more communities are stepping in when the public sector steps back due to budgetary constraints.  Our community empowerment legislation and support in Scotland is enabling that to happen but the tourism industry  hasn’t yet started to measure it – and nurture it.

Which brings me to the elephant in the room.  Community run does not mean amateur, unreliable and mediocre.

Take note – this autumn at the national VisitScotland Thistle Awards 2024, five awards went to community run tourism enterprises in SCOTO’s network.  Five out of 18 national award categories went to community led tourism enterprises and individuals.  Only one of these categories was dedicated to Thriving Communities and a community initiative rightfully won.  The other awards were for innovation (Loch ness Hub), inclusion (Trimontium Museum) and outstanding cultural experience  (Wigtown Book Festival).  These  winners were up against mainstream tourism businesses from across the Scottish tourism industry and came out on top. Their endeavours are top of their class.

And to top all this off, this year the award for Scottish Tourism Individual of the Year went to Russell Fraser, SCOTO’s founder and chair.  This was in recognition of all that he does at Loch Ness Hub and much further afield through our SCOTO network – what he does, and how he does it. I smiled at the weekend as Russell himself posted on LinkedIn with a great post about ‘Russell – own it’, very aware that many will be asking ‘who, why, what for?’  And someone prominent in tourism circles who hasn’t yet met Russell adds a comment saying she was asking exactly these questions – but she now wants a conversation because he’s clearly worth chatting to!

So, has this changed your own mindset even just a little? Can you see why tourism needs a change in mindset – and communities need to come to the fore, not visitors.