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Homecoming 2009
26/10/2008
Funding of £190,000 to host a series of events as part of next year's Homecoming celebrations was announced today.
Culture Minister Linda Fabiani made the announcement during a visit to New York, where she is undertaking a programme of visits to promote Homecoming 2009 to the North America market - a key tourist market for Scotland with around a fifth of visitors and visitor spend coming from across the Atlantic in 2007.
The Scottish Government funding will be used to support key Homecoming events including The Gathering 2009 - a Homecoming Scotland Signature event. Aiming to be the greatest international clan gathering the world has ever seen, The Gathering will be one of the Year of Homecoming's most popular events. More than 4,500 'passports' (tickets for the whole weekend) have been sold already. In addition, £30,000 will go towards the Scottish Diaspora Forum which will take place in the Scottish Parliament in conjunction with The Gathering, and £60,000 will fund the Diaspora Conference regional events programme.
Linda Fabiani said:
"Homecoming Scotland 2009 is a unique opportunity to attract those with Scottish ancestry as well as those who simply love Scotland to 'come home' and join in our year long celebrations.
"I am here in New York to extend the invitation to our American friends and make it clear that Scotland is the place to visit in 2009.
"With over 200,000 individuals in the US and Canada receiving monthly Homecoming updates and Scotland's biggest ever direct mailing campaign to ancestral Scots, there is no doubt that Scotland is taking Homecoming Scotland 2009 very seriously as a massive opportunity to boost its economy. I am confident that the additional funding the Scottish Government has allocated will help ensure that Scotland takes full advantage of the opportunities that Homecoming will bring.
"As well as celebrating the birth of Scotland's national poet, Burns, we will also be celebrating some of Scotland's other great contributions to the world: golf, whisky, great minds and innovations, and Scotland's rich culture and heritage. There is no doubt that the Year of Homecoming will be a year to remember, offering all of Scotland's international family the chance to come back and reconnect with our heritage while also learning what it means to be Scottish in the 21st century."
From Burns Night (January, 25) to St Andrew's Day (November, 30) 2009, a country wide programme of Homecoming events and activities will entice visitors and locals alike.
Homecoming Scotland 2009 is growing all the time meaning that by the end of 2008, the main programme will have doubled in size since its launch, to 200 events. Individuals and organisations across the country are getting behind the initiative with over 3000 websites now linking to the main Homecoming site