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CHAPTER SEVEN PERCEPTIONS OF TARTAN WEEK AND SCOTLAND

Introduction

7.1 A self-completion survey was distributed via Survey Monkey, an online survey package, to Tartan Week 2006 attendees in order to collect their views on Tartan Week and the events funded by the Scottish Executive.

7.2 It had been expected that all event organisers would provide email addresses for attendees at their events. However, in practice this was not the case, thereby limiting the reach of the questionnaire. The questionnaire was sent to 194 email contacts, the majority of which were gathered via the www.tartanweekny.com website, plus additional contact details provided by the Scottish Book Trust. After one week a reminder email was sent out to those who had not responded requesting their participation in the survey.

7.3 A total of 91 responses were received. This is a small sample size and caution should be taken when interpreting these results. It should also be noted that some of the questions were not answered by every respondent thereby varying the base of respondents within this section.

7.4 It is recommended that in future years, event organisers are informed at the funding application stage for Tartan Week that they will be required to provide details of event attendees for survey purposes. The evaluation process would benefit from greater feedback from those who have attended Tartan Week as it would give greater insight into levels of satisfaction with event organisation and content as well as attendees' impressions of Scotland.

7.5 This chapter of the evaluation covers the marketing of Tartan Week 2006 and gives a snapshot of how Scotland is perceived by the limited number of respondents who completed the questionnaire.

Profile of respondents

7.6 The profile of respondents to the online survey is shown in the Table 7.1 below. Respondents were slightly more likely to be female and aged 35+. Not surprisingly, respondents were most likely to be American, whilst other respondents described themselves as Scottish, Irish, Mexican, Puerto Rican, Canadian, Pakistani, Korean, Polish and Swiss.

Table 7.1: Profile of respondents

Base: all respondents

*Respondents may have given more than one response

Tartan Week 2006

7.7 Visitors to Tartan Week 2006 were most likely to be visiting for the first time with almost two thirds of respondents (57 out of the 91) stating they had not visited Tartan Day/Tartan Week prior to their visit in 2006.

7.8 Over two thirds of respondents (57 of 84) stated that their reason for visiting Tartan Week 2006 was their "general interest in Scotland" whilst 23 respondents stated that they wanted to "find out more about Scotland".

7.9 Respondents were most likely to be aware of, and had attended, the two events which were located within key locations within New York - the Scottish Village was located in Grand Central Station and the Tartan Day Parade took place along 6 ^th Avenue from 44 ^th Street to 58 ^th Street. Awareness of, and attendance at, the cultural activities during Tartan Week such as those hosted by the Scottish Youth Theatre and Scottish Book Trust tended to be lower than the larger scale events such as the Scottish Village. However, this difference in awareness, and attendance, is likely to reflect the origin of the sample for the study.

Marketing of Tartan Week

7.10 Respondents were most likely to have been made aware of the events at Tartan Week 2006 via www.tartanweekny.com, the official Tartan Week website created by the Scottish Executive and VisitScotland - 34 of 62 respondents had been made aware of the events via this website. The VisitScotland website, www.visitscotland.com, was the second most likely source of awareness of Tartan Week 2006 amongst respondents mentioned by 28 of the 62 respondents.

7.11 Over two thirds of respondents (44 of 63) stated that they saw the "Celebrate Scotland" marque (see below) at Tartan Week events. Respondents were most likely to have seen the marque at Grand Central Station and on the lamp posts outside the Station. Other events at which the marque was noted by respondents were the Scottish Village, "Geordie" and the bookstore events (Scottish Book Trust).

Objectives of Tartan Week 2006

7.12 Respondents were asked to select, from a prompted list, what they thought Tartan Week 2006 was trying to achieve. The Scottish Executive objectives for Tartan Week 2006 were included in the list along with two random statements: "to support Scottish associations in America" and "to celebrate St Andrews Day". Whilst it is not a key objective for the Scottish Executive to support Scottish associations in America as part of Tartan Week, the Scottish Executive works in partnership with these associations during the period leading up to Tartan Week and during the event itself.

7.13 All the respondents who answered this question (63) agreed that one of the Scottish Executive's objectives for Tartan Week was "to attract American tourists to Scotland". Over three quarters of respondents (50) stated that Tartan Week was trying to develop cultural links, whilst approximately two thirds (39) suggested it aimed to support Scottish associations in America. In fact the latter is not a Tartan Week objective. Over half the respondents (37) stated that the aim of Tartan Week was to improve Scotland's economy. Only 11 respondents thought that Tartan Week was to celebrate St Andrews Day.

Impressions of Scotland

7.14 The questionnaire sought to gather respondents' impressions of Scotland. Due to the small sample size these findings act as a snapshot of how Scotland is perceived.

Table 7.2: Word associated with Scotland

Base: All respondents (64)

7.15 The three words respondents were most likely to select to describe Scotland were welcoming, traditional and proud. Only one respondent used the word boring to describe Scotland with no respondents associating the words unfriendly or unwelcoming with Scotland.

7.16 Respondents were most likely to associate Scotland with whisky, tourism and golf - similar to the findings of the 2005 evaluation of Tartan Week.

7.17 Respondents were asked, unprompted, to specify three aspects of Scottish culture of which they were most aware. Music was the top cultural aspect respondents related to Scotland followed by history and tartan/kilts. These findings are similar to previous research conducted on behalf of the Scottish Executive which highlighted that traditional aspects of Scottish culture were most likely to be associated with the country.

Overall Awareness of Scotland

7.18 When asked to describe their overall awareness of Scotland, 21 of 61 respondents stated that they had visited Scotland for interest and/or leisure whilst 17 respondents considered themselves to be knowledgeable/interested in Scotland.

7.19 The questionnaire featured seven attitude statements relating to Scotland and respondents were asked to state to what extent they agreed or disagreed with each of them. The findings suggest that the majority of respondents agreed that Scotland is a patriotic country with a strong sense of identity but that respondents were less likely to agree that it is a competitive place for business.

Table 7.3: Attitude statements

Base: All respondents (62)

Tartan Week 2007

7.20 The findings suggest high levels of satisfaction amongst attendees to Tartan Week 2006 with 57 of 63 respondents stating that they would be likely to return to Tartan Week 2007 and 61 respondents stating that they were likely to recommend the event to a friend/relative.

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