Conference offers businesses food for thought

Over 170 tourism delegates discovered how they could make the most of the £147m* food and drink economy in the Highlands at a recent ‘one stop shop’ conference held in the Highlands, supported by VisitScotland.

With an impressive 125 Taste Our Best** accreditations already awarded in the Highlands, businesses were finding out how they could capitalise on Scotland’s Year of Food & Drink in 2015.

Held at the Kingsmills Hotel in Inverness, the annual Highland Tourism Conference was attended by delegates from across the Highlands and Moray Speyside. Organised by VisitScotland, Highland Council and the Scottish Tourism Alliance, the event included workshops on the Taste Our Best scheme, Increasing Your Online Presence, Accessibility and Developing Skills for the Customer Journey.

Scott Armstrong, VisitScotland Regional Partnerships Director, said:
“We were delighted with how popular the take-up was for this conference and delegates who came along attended workshops on a range of topics, with the aim of helping them focus on how to make the best of what 2015 offers.

“I have received positive feedback from those who came along to the event, about how useful they found the workshops and inspirational speakers. Promoting Scotland’s food and drink is a recipe for success – the industry has the potential to provide significant growth for tourism.”

Craig Ewan, General Manager of the Kingsmills Hotel, which hosted the conference, said:
“Kingsmills were delighted to be involved, as the collaboration between all the businesses in our destination is paramount to our future success. There was a great buzz in the room and lots of positive feedback afterwards, hopefully the indication of the way we will all perform in 2015.”

Mandy Boswell, who, with husband Paul owns and runs the 5* Coralach B&B on the Isle of Skye, said:
“I was delighted to have been asked to be a panel member at the Taste Our Best workshop at the recent Highland Tourism Conference. The comments from delegates about the workshop have been extremely positive and they appreciated our sharing tips on how they can increase the use of Scottish produce in their cooking.

“We hope that by showing how a small establishment like Coralach can creatively include such a high proportion of Scottish, and particularly local, food in its menu will inspire others to try too. We found the other workshops informative and took the opportunity to meet and talk to the other delegates and form useful business relationships.”

Chris McCoy, VisitScotland’s Equality and Diversity Manager, spoke to those attending about accessibility and undertook workshops with delegates, who included representatives from the Strathspey Railway, Black Isle Bicycles, Eilean Donan Castle and Moray Speyside DMO, amongst others.

The keynote speaker at the event was Lady Claire Macdonald and Caroline Warburton from the Scottish Tourism Alliance also attended.

Inverness-based business, Good Highland Food, was the main food partner at the event and sponsored the seafood pie – using fresh, local, Moray Firth fish - served to delegates at lunch, as well as showcasing and highlighting the fresh, good quality local produce and ingredients on offer across the Highlands.

* The amount of visitor expenditure by overnight visitors in the Highlands on eating and drinking in 2013 was £147 million. Sources GBTS / IPS 2013: (Great Britain Tourism Survey & International Passenger Survey). This comprises eating and drinking, not food and drink purchased as shopping/gifts.

** Taste Our Best is a joint initiative between VisitScotland and the Scottish Government. Launched in 2013, the scheme is designed to recognise businesses including hotels, restaurants, cafes, takeaways, visitor attractions and B&Bs that not only offer a quality food and drink experience, but include and promote Scottish produce on their menus, to give consumers choice.