Press release -
A French Connection
Bilingual pupils at a Moray high school have been trying their hand at creating videos to promote Scotland to international visitors by adding enticing new content in French to inspirational adverts created by the national tourism organisation.
Staff from VisitScotland and Moray Speyside Tourism worked in partnership with a group of S3 pupils at Milne’s High School in Fochabers, showing them the national tourism organisation’s adverts and inviting them to take part in a competition to create an advert for VisitScotland. The two organisations are working together to highlight and promote tourism as a positive career choice.
As part of the project, pupils could advertise any event, city, region or itinerary that interested them, but the advert had to be in their own words, in French and in any electronic format of their choice. The winning team would be the one that created the most successful advert for Scotland for French-speaking visitors.
Lindsay Lyall, Principal Teacher of Modern Languages at Milne’s High School, said: “I have tried to create a range of links between our school and different businesses to show pupils the relevance, value and importance of being able to speak another language.
“The pupils and I looked at a range of different options for their adverts but in the end almost all of the groups chose to edit a video clip. They were given a choice of videos made by VisitScotland to edit and they wrote and added subtitles in French that fitted the pictures and the soundtrack. Some pupils really went to town with this task and changed the soundtrack, added pictures or cut up several videos to create their advert.”
VisitScotland staff judged the adverts and were very impressed with the quality of the pupils’ work. They found choosing a winner a difficult task and selected two winning teams, comprising pupils Isla Matthews, Abby Watson, Abby Cant and Iona Cameron.
Lindsay Lyall added: “Feedback from the pupils has been overwhelmingly positive. All pupils engaged really with, and hugely enjoyed, the project. They particularly liked using the video editing software and being given the opportunity to be really creative, both with their French and with the advert they created.
“Many pupils commented ‘this was the best thing we have ever done in French’. As this is the final topic of S3, and a number of pupils will not continue their language studies beyond this stage, it has been great to finish on such a high point. I would hope to continue this project next year, and I am currently gathering the pupils’ views and staff at VisitScotland’s thoughts on how to improve this in the future.”
The winning pupils were given activity vouchers from ACE Adventure in Dunphail, which they have used to book an adventure of their choice with the company.
Jo Robinson, VisitScotland Regional Director, said: “VisitScotland has been working closely with Moray Speyside Tourism to support the National 5 Travel & Tourism syllabus in Moray Speyside schools, and in partnership with Developing the Young Workforce (DYW) to promote tourism as a career choice.
“2018 is Scotland’s Year of Young People and it is fantastic to see these young people engaging with us. It is important for us to work in partnership with schools and to not only help the younger generation but to inspire them to look at tourism as a great career option and to also to be hugely proud of the beautiful country in which they live.
“Milne’s High School are real trailblazers and have embraced this project. I would like to congratulate them all for their enthusiastic approach and hope some of them would consider a career in the tourism industry in the future.”
Rachel Glennie, Communications and Digital Media Assistant at Moray Speyside Tourism, said: “The tourism project between VisitScotland, Moray Speyside Tourism and Milne’s High School presented a valuable and practical opportunity for students to use their knowledge of the French language to create an exciting video aimed at attracting the French market to visit Scotland.
“By encouraging pupils to creatively use their interests to build a valuable, exciting career within tourism, we secure the industry’s growth and enable people from across the globe to continually fall in love with the beauty, and warm welcome of Scotland.”
Jim Davis, owner and operator of ACE Adventure, said: “I was delighted to get involved in this project - the significant benefits of combining outdoor adventure with lifelong education is something close to our hearts.
“Getting students in a French class to engage in the subject with the VisitScotland tourism video competition is a fabulous example of collaboration.
“Congratulations should go to Mrs Lyall and the students that I met at this impressive school. We are really looking forward to a fun day out taking the four pupils river tubing and cliff jumping next month."
Topics
- Tourism
Categories
- corporate communications
Regions
- Scotland
Notes to Editors
- Follow us on twitter: @visitscotnews
- VisitScotland is Scotland’s national tourism organisation. Its core purpose is to maximise the economic benefit of tourism to Scotland.
- The organisation’s core objective is to contribute to the Tourism 2020 Strategy ambition of growing tourism revenues by £1 billion by 2020.
- This will be supported by seven overarching strategies:
- Marketing: we will market Scotland and its outstanding assets to visitors from all parts of the world, including the promotion of Scotland to people living in Scotland to visit different parts of the country
- Events: we will support the national events strategy and its delivery, and sustain, develop and promote Scotland’s international profile as one of the world’s foremost events destinations
- Internationalisation and International Engagement: we will utilise all our platforms to enable Scottish-based tourism businesses to better understand international opportunities and market to a global audience and we will work within One Scotland Partnerships to optimise the potential of Scotland’s Diaspora and our strategic partners at regional, European and global levels
- Customer Experience: we will provide information and inspiration to visitors both locally and globally via their preferred medium of choice
- Quality and Sustainability: we will provide support and advice to businesses, with the goal of improving the quality and sustainability of the tourism sector in Scotland. We will provide quality assurance to visitors through our Quality Schemes
- Inclusive Tourism: we will strive to make tourism in Scotland inclusive and available to all
- Working in Partnership: we will listen to and work with the industry, partners and communities to shape our offering and support
- To ensure everyone can safely enjoy Scotland’s amazing countryside and landscapes, VisitScotland encourages all visitors to fully respect their surroundings by behaving in a responsible and appropriate way.
- VisitScotland works together with tourism businesses to make tourism a success for everyone and ensure the industry continues to grow.
- The organisation employs 700 people and has offices and VisitScotland Information Centres across Scotland.
- Spending by tourists in Scotland generates around £12 billion of economic activity in the wider Scottish supply chain and contributes around £6 billion to Scottish GDP (in basic prices). This represents about 5% of total Scottish GDP
- The Scottish Government is the Managing Authority for the European Structural Funds 2014-20 Programme. For further information visit www.gov.scot or follow @scotgovESIF
- For VisitScotland’s press releases go to http://www.visitscotland.org/media_centre.aspx, tourism statistics and frequently asked questions go to http://www.visitscotland.org/
- Where possible, a Gaelic speaker will be made available for broadcast interviews on request (Far an tèid iarraidh, agus far am bheil sin nar comas, bruidhinnidh neach le Gàidhlig aig agallamh) 2017 Year of History, Heritage and Archaeology
- 2017 is the year to delve into the past and discover Scotland’s fascinating stories through a wide-ranging variety of new and existing activity to drive the nation’s tourism and events sector, boosting tourism across Scotland.
- The Year of History, Heritage and Archaeology begins on 1 January 2017 and will end on 31 December 2017. It will build on the momentum generated by previous themed years in Scotland including the 2015 Year of Food and Drink, Homecoming Scotland 2014, the Year of Creative and the Year of Natural.
- The Year of History, Heritage and Archaeology is a Scottish Government initiative being led by VisitScotland, and supported by a variety of partners including Creative Scotland, Scottish Tourism Alliance, Scottish Enterprise, The National Trust for Scotland, Historic Environment Scotland, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, Built Environment Forum Scotland, Heritage Lottery Fund, Museums Galleries Scotland and Traditional Arts and Culture Scotland.
- The Year of History, Heritage and Archaeology is supported by £570,000 of Scottish Government funding.
- The Year of History, Heritage and Archaeology events fund is managed by EventScotland, part of VisitScotland’s Events Directorate.
- For more information visit visitscotland.com/HHA2017 or join the conversation at #HHA2017
