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Lord Macdonald announces New Year boost for Tourism
05/01/1999
Scotland's tourism industry today received a major boost when Scottish Business and Industry Minister, Lord Macdonald announced that it is to receive additional funding of £1 million.
The £1million will be split between an all-Scotland IT project "Project Ossian", which will improve the quality and accessibility of information on Scottish Tourism, and assistance which will allow the Scottish Tourist Board to restructure and refocus their activities. Consideration is also being given to allocating some of the money to assist the Scottish Borders Tourist Board with a new marketing campaign
Lord Macdonald said:
"The implementation of Project Ossian will provide Scotland's tourism operators with new methods of marketing and providing services to visitors. It is a tremendous opportunity for our industry to gain competitive advantage in the global marketplace. I want to see all of the industry embrace this opportunity.
"The successful implementation of the project is however dependent on the input of ATBs. I recognise that this will mean that the Boards will incur substantial additional expenditure over the next few months.
"I am therefore making available to them through the Scottish Tourist Board (STB) additional funding which is to be used specifically to assist in meeting the costs of implementing Project Ossian at the ATB level.
"I am also making additional resources available to the Scottish Tourist Board to assist them to restructure and refocus their activities in line with the conclusions of a policy review which we announced in July this year.
"I will also consider providing additional resources to the Scottish Borders Tourist Board to assist in a new marketing campaign. Tourism has been identified as an area of activity which has potential to grow the economy of the Borders
"This additional £1 million of support demonstrates again the importance which this Government attach to supporting our tourism industry and to the development of new technology."
BACKGROUND
1. Project Ossian is a key public/private sector IT initiative led by the Scottish Tourist Board. It aims to ensure competitive advantage for the Scottish tourism industry in the global electronic marketplace.
2. Area Tourist Boards (ATBs) are responsible for developing the project at the local level. There are 14 ATBs.
3. The conclusions of a review of the Scottish Tourist Board were announced on 22 July 1998. They called for a more strategic role for the Board covering its marketing, visitor servicing and development functions and suggested ways in which improvements could be made in the type of support which the Board provides and the way in which that support is delivered.
4. Tourism is one of Scotland's biggest industries. It accounted in 1997 for around £2.6 billion expenditure and supported 177,000 related jobs. Figures for 1998 are not yet available but STB is forecasting a drop in expenditure of at least five per cent.
News Release: 2737/98
31 December 1998