Travel Massive Edinburgh is Local at Heart
The Travel Massive Edinburgh community enjoyed a fantastic networking evening on the roof of the Forth View Suite at The George Hotel Edinburgh on Thursday 14 July 2016. Read more
Discover Monthly Scottish Twitter Travel Chat Scotlandhour
The Scottish Twitter travel and tourism chat Scotlandhour was founded in early 2011 by tweeter, avid traveller and proud Glaswegian Dougie Baird.
As well as spawning multiple “hour” chats on Twitter across the world, our monthly #scotlandhour chat has also had some interesting developments of its own including:
- Being the subject of a motion and debate by MSP’s and the Tourism Minister in the Scottish Parliament
- Being showcased at Social Media Week Glasgow and to tourism audiences in San Francisco and Iceland
- Teaming up with #Blogmanay to celebrate Hogmanay in Scotland
- Joining Twitter forces with the Scottish Government to celebrate St. Andrew’s Day and Robert Burns Day
The Scotlandhour core team has also experienced some changes, with new additions Glen Moyer, and Vivian Maeda joining Dougie Baird, Aileen Lamb, Lesley Judge, Mark Calpin, Fiona Drane and Sam Weston.
How does Scotlandhour work and what is it for? It’s a Twitter travel chat, dedicated exclusively to all things Scottish, and it takes place on the last Wednesday of each month, from 9-10pm GMT/BST. Each month there is a travel theme, and we crowd-source the questions which people can offer via our Twitter feed or Facebook page.
We also invite volunteer co-hosts to help us with the chat on a monthly basis, so for example if our chat is about heritage or food and drink, we’ll look for relevant organisations or those with links to those subjects.
The 6 chat questions are published on the Scotlandhour website one week before the end of the month chat, to let people prepare their answers, images and more.
To take part, prepare your answers, join in the chat, and make sure you tag your answers with #scotlandhour.
Check out the tab of themes and guest co-hosting tips if you’re interested in helping us out.
Follow us on Twitter, check out the Scotlandhour website and join us the last Wednesday of each month at 9pm.
Destination Leaders Programme Summer News
Destination Leaders Programme Scotland – Summer 2016 Updates
DLP Year 3 Graduate on 19 May 2016
Congratulations to the latest DLP 3 cohort of twenty-one Glasgow and Edinburgh industry professionals, (pictured above) who graduated from the Destination Leaders programme at Edinburgh Napier University on 19 May, with the 2015/2016 intake producing what was agreed to be an excellent round of group projects and presentations. At the time of writing, two DLP Year 3 projects have secured support for further development.
Programme leader Kenneth Wardrop said: “The standard of presentations in DLP 3 was exceptionally high. We were delighted to see a diverse range of collaborative group projects and the combination of Glasgow and Edinburgh professionals has generated valuable debate and partnership working. We are confident that this will have a significant impact on future working relationships between these two great cities.”
DLP Alumni Network Continues to Grow
The DLP alumni network continues to grow, now with 60 professionals having graduated with an Executive Certificate in Destination Leadership from Edinburgh Napier University since the initial DLP programme in 2013. Participating destinations to date have been Edinburgh, St. Andrews, Argyll and the Isles and Glasgow.
DLP Year 4 Applications Open for Aberdeenshire & Tayside
The Destination Leaders programme looks forward to its 2016/2017 intake, recruiting participants from Aberdeenshire and Tayside, and will hold a number of recruitment roadshows in June 2016. Find key dates here.
Read the full DLP newsletter or watch DLP alumni talking about their experience of the programme here.
A Tourism Journey of Discovery in North Iceland
I recently returned from a week’s tourism learning journey to North Iceland, otherwise known as North Iceland Culinary Experience: Innovate, Develop, Taste! (NICE). Like the rest of my group I’m buzzing with ideas about how to share what I’ve learned with others in my industry and beyond and look forward to working on this in the coming weeks and months. Read more
Travel Massive Edinburgh Welcomes The World
Travel Massive Edinburgh welcomed the world on Thursday 27 August, with event sponsors Festivals Edinburgh at the G&V Royal Mile Hotel and a strong turn-out from the local travel community.
With six international festivals in full swing in the city, including the Edinburgh International Festival, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo, bringing participation from 70 countries, and since Travel Massive connects thousands of people within the travel industry around the world, the theme of welcoming the world seemed appropriate.
The Travel Massive Edinburgh August event welcomed over 50 travel professionals including guests from Qatar Airways, Edinburgh Airport, VisitScotland, Skyscanner, Booking.com, Edinburgh Napier University, Scotch Broth Events, ETAG, Haggis Adventures, Yelp Edinburgh, Mercat Tours, new tour company Glasgow Music City Tours; travel bloggers, accommodation providers and more.
Edinburgh Chapter leaders Lesley Judge of Smart Tourism and Katy Duncan of Haggis Adventures welcomed guests and set the scene for the evening’s event, handing over to Festivals Edinburgh Marketing Manager Susan Russell.
Susan Russell, Lesley Judge and Katy Duncan
Susan took guests through an entertaining whistle-stop tour of the Edinburgh festivals’ history – they started in 1947 – and only the World Cup and the Olympics have a bigger audience. 70 countries take part and the impact on the city is impressive and far-reaching, drawing in 4.2m attendees and generating £261m of revenue, offering diverse business opportunities for all travel and tourism businesses.
Susan Russell of Festivals Edinburgh
We learned that the Edinburgh festivals don’t just take place in August –there are 12 of them, and Edinburgh is a festival city pretty much all year round, with a diverse range of events. Susan ended her talk with a great video of some of the amazing performers and authors who have enriched the Edinburgh Festivals over the years.
Travel Massive Edinburgh August 2015
General Manager Dale Simpson of the G&V Royal Mile Hotel gave everyone a warm welcome, updating guests on the latest news regarding the transformation of the hotel rooms and spaces. A special thank you to Dale and his team and to hotel staff members Melanie and Riccardo who were incredibly helpful and friendly, and who looked after everyone brilliantly, keeping them fed and watered.
GM Dale Simpson from G&V Royal Mile Hotel
Festival tickets up for grabs in our Twitter contest included shows from Adam Hills and Jason Byrne, as well as tickets for the Festival Fireworks concert and Edinburgh’s Hogmanay Street Party. The lucky winners were Anna Morris of The Edinburgh Address, Christopher Davidson of Haggis Hostels, Carol Howley of Skyscanner, Pippa Ratky of VisitScotland and Mags McNeil of ETAG.
Susan Russell of Festivals Edinburgh and winner Carol Howley from Skyscanner
The Festivals Edinburgh social wall kept everyone entertained with the latest Twitter and Instagram feeds from the evening, and there was plenty of information on Edinburgh Festivals on a touch screen and in print for guests.
Everyone enjoyed plenty of excellent networking, festival chat and lots of laughs. The feedback from guests was positive as usual, with many new guests already looking forward to repeating the experience. Some guests had to nip off early to festival shows and after some post-event dinner, several headed off to shows which ran on into the wee small hours.
Travel Massive Edinburgh would like to thank the growing travel community for attending, Festivals Edinburgh for sponsoring our event and the team at G&V Royal Mile Hotel Edinburgh for helping to make it a success.
With festivals still firmly on our minds, many look forward to the start of the Edinburgh Mela this weekend and to squeezing the very last drop out of Edinburgh’s festival city this August.
Check out tweets from the event via #travelmassive #edinburgh.
Sign up to Travel Massive Edinburgh and connect with others in the local community and across the globe.
If you’re interested in sponsoring an event or you have an idea for a future event, please get in touch.
Glasgow Music City Tours Launching July 2015
These boots are made for walking….
Glasgow Music City Tours is a new tour company which offers guided walks of the city’s music venues, past and present.
Launching to the public in July 2015, the company’s tour schedule begins with four bespoke tours of the Merchant City. Part of the Merchant City Festival, all four events will culminate with a unique show from a different musical artist in Mono Café Bar.
The company is owned and run by Fiona Shepherd, Alison Stroak and Jonathan Trew. All three have extensive experience of music journalism or publishing in Scotland and see the tours as a unique opportunity to promote Glasgow’s vibrant music scene and its fascinating heritage as a music city.
The company’s knowledgeable tour guides are musicians, DJs and writers who are well placed to bring alive the stories of the legendary performers who have stayed, played and made music in the UK’s only UNESCO City of Music.
From August, the company will run two weekly tours, each lasting approximately 1.5-2 hours:
Glasgow’s Music Mile tells the tale of city centre venues from the Concert Hall to King Tut’s, via the former site of the Apollo. The tour ends at King Tut’s where guests will have the opportunity to take selfies on the stage. Takes place on Saturday afternoons.
Merchant City Music: Past and Present explores the iconic venues of the Merchant City and East End from Britannia Panopticon Music Hall to Barrowland Ballroom. Takes place on Friday afternoons.
Glasgow Music City Tours will be running press trips for both tours in July. See below for dates.
‘Glasgow is a music city through and through,’ said Jonathan Trew, director of Glasgow Music City Tours. ‘The city hosts an average of 130 different music events every week and Glasgow’s audiences and venues are famous for their passion and atmosphere.
‘Whether you remember seeing David Bowie at The Apollo, Paolo Nutini at King Tut’s or are looking forward to Texas at The Hydro, Glasgow Music City Tours offers an entertaining exploration of the places, people and performances, which have shaped the city’s musical landscape.’
Information:
Glasgow’s Music Mile press tour is on Saturday 18th July, starting at noon.
The Merchant City Music tour is on Tuesday 21st July at 2pm. Contact the team if you would like to come along.
Merchant City Festival tours: Sunday 26th, Thursday 30th, Friday 31st July and Sunday 2nd August.
Twitter: @GlasMusicTour
For more info or interviews: Jonathan Trew M: 07803 204 563
jonathan@glasgowmusiccitytours.com
Luxury Travel, Cool Canapes, Castle Views: Travel Massive Edinburgh May 2015
The May 2015 Travel Massive Edinburgh event kicked off in style on Thursday 28th, at the offices of sponsors 80 Days, An Occupancy Marketing Company.
Travel Massive Edinburgh! (Photo: Katalin Som)
Guests from the Edinburgh travel community enjoyed drinks and stunning views from our venue across to Edinburgh Castle – even a rainbow appeared, enhancing the postcard-perfect backdrop.
Edinburgh Castle views! (Photo: Natalie Allera)
After a warm welcome to guests from Edinburgh Chapter Leader Katy Duncan, our 10 minute talks kicked off with Mark Forrester, Managing Director of 80 Days, An Occupancy Marketing Company, and our venue sponsor for the evening, on the state of luxury travel in the UK.
80 Days/Occupancy Marketing MD Mark Forrester kicking off the talks. (Photo: 80 Days, An Occupancy Marketing Company)
Guests learned that a typical online purchase journey in travel takes 24 days and 21.6 visits to 9.4 sites (from Google via Occupancy) and that search queries in the luxury travel category (UK) grew by 8% in the first quarter.
We were fortunate to have Edinburgh School of Food and Wine sponsor some beautiful canapés for our guests to enjoy during the evening – guests enjoyed Marinated Bocconcini watermelon, smoked salmon with pickled cucumber, quail egg with celery stick, and roast cinnamon pear en croute – all stunning.
Delicious canapes from Edinburgh School of Food and Wine. (Photo: Kim Kjaerside).
The school’s founder, Ian Pirrie, gave an interesting talk about the school, its development and activities and how it works with others in the industry.
Ian Pirrie from Edinburgh School of Food and Wine.
As for the delicious canapés, the only sharing that was involved seemed to be in photo and in Tweet form – they certainly made an impact on our guests – thank you again, Ian and ESFW!
Our final speaker, Natalie Allera, Marketing Manager for The Bonham Hotel Edinburgh and Starwood Capital/Hayley Principal Hotels, updated the travel community on recent developments for the hotel group in Edinburgh and Glasgow, meaning that a new group of hotels has been formed, comprising The Bonham, The George Hotel and The Roxburghe Hotel in Edinburgh, together with Blythswood Square and The Grand Central Hotel in Glasgow.
Marketing Manager Natalie Allera of The Bonham Hotel with prize winner Eva Sturm of TravelResponsibly
Natalie kindly sponsored a tasty prize of dinner for two at The Bonham Hotel Edinburgh and she was delighted to congratulate the prize winner, Eva Sturm (@trvlresponsibly) of New Edinburgh Tours (@neweditours) who won the prize in our Twitter contest, using the hashtag #bonhamlux.
Thanks again from Katy, Julie and Lesley at Travel Massive Edinburgh to all of our very generous sponsors, 80 Days, An Occupancy Marketing Company, for offering us a brilliant venue, great atmosphere, drinks and more, to the Edinburgh School of Food and Wine for memorable canapés and to The Bonham Hotel Edinburgh for a great prize – our guests agreed that they all made our May event special.
Enjoying Travel Massive Edinburgh May 2015 at the lovely Occupancy offices.
Thank you also to the Travel Massive community in Edinburgh who have been incredibly supportive, attending our events, offering suggestions and ideas for future events and coming up with great offers of sponsorship. We are really enjoying building on this as well as seeing people connect and network, and it’s encouraging to see new faces at each event.
Edinburgh festivals & events banter at Travel Massive Edinburgh
We look forward to engaging with the Edinburgh travel community at more #TravelMassive #Edinburgh events planned for this summer – the next event is scheduled for August.
Find out more about Travel Massive at www.travelmassive.com
Register in the Travel Massive Edinburgh chapter
Tweet the chapter leaders: @katyonthego @lesleyjudge @zurika – or email editravelmassive@gmail.com
Guest Blog: Destination Leaders Learning Journey to Amsterdam
In this guest blog, Kenneth Wardrop, Edinburgh Institute Programme Leader for the Destination Leaders Programme at Edinburgh Napier University shares his thoughts on the recent DLP learning journey to Amsterdam.
Robert Louis Stevenson famously said: “The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” In this context the benefits of taking our current group of Destination Leaders Programme participants on a learning journey to Amsterdam, created the opportunity to gain an external perspective and to reflect back on the operations and competitive positioning of our destinations – Edinburgh, Argyll and the Isles and Scotland.
The visit which was hosted by Amsterdam Marketing proved inspiring. Amsterdam Marketing’s Director of Marketing, Geerte Udo, provided powerful insights in to the success of the ‘Iamsterdam’ brand and global place marketing, the value of alignment of destination messaging, the power of a shared and clear vision for the destination, strong leadership provided by Amsterdam Marketing, and the benefits of collaboration.
On the learning journey the group were also hosted by the Van Gogh Museum , a commercially dynamic and creative cultural venue, and IJVenues : ‘Amsterdam’s first Music and Conference centre’, which provided a powerful case study on the ‘value-add’ that can be achieved through product innovation and cooperation. EI staff and the DLP participants were very appreciative of the time given by tourism industry colleagues in Amsterdam in sharing their experiences and insights with the group.
Following the visit DLP participants commented that the value of the learnings and insights gained over the past 5 months of the Programme all became apparent on this learning journey.
Diane McRae, Senior Event Manager at the Royal Yacht Britannia and DLP 2014/15 Participant said: “For me a key learning point from Amsterdam is that collaboration in the city comes across strongly from the top down and the ground level up, with the destination taking the experience from this collective approach and positively moving it forward, this is something our destination can learn from.”
Kenneth Wardrop, Associate, Edinburgh Institute Programme Leader for the DLP, 22 March 2015.
Programme information:
Based on an internationally acclaimed initiative originating from Melbourne, Australia, the Destination Leaders Programme (DLP) is a unique opportunity to build a new leadership model for Scottish tourism. Participants play an active role in helping position Edinburgh, St. Andrews and Argyll as world leading tourism destinations. Now in it’s second year, the second programme commenced in October 2014 and by May 2015, thirty-eight indiviuals will have graduated.
The DLP pilot programme was developed in partnership with Edinburgh Napier University and delivered by the Edinburgh Institute – the commercial arm of Edinburgh Napier University’s Business School – in partnership with Scottish Enterprise.
Scotlandhour February 2015: Events and Festivals
This month’s Scottish tourism and travel chat #scotlandhour celebrates Events and Festivals on Wednesday 25th February, from 9-10pm.
The questions for the February 2015 chat are:
Q1: If you were to recommend one festival to visitors, what would it be & why #ScotlandHour
Q2: What three things are essential for any trip to a festival in Scotland #ScotlandHour
Q3: Which is your favourite small festival & why #ScotlandHour
Q4: What makes Scotland’s festivals the best in the world #ScotlandHour
Q5: What festival have you enjoyed whilst abroad, and what can Scottish festivals learn from it #ScotlandHour
Q6: Share your best Scottish festivals photos #ScotlandHour
As 2015 is the Year of Food & Drink, ideas for food festivals and events or which festival serves the best types of food and drink are welcome.
The #scotlandhour team looks forward to tweeting with you on Wednesday 25th February, from 9-10pm.
Remember to add A1, A2 etc before your answers when you tweet and don’t forget the hashtag!
Find more information at www.scotlandhour.com or tweet @scotlandhour
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