Press release -
Funding festival fever in Aberdeen
A digital campaign with a bespoke eBook which markets Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire as an exciting cultural destination has received over £22,000 from the VisitScotland Growth Fund.
Entitled ‘Visit Aberdeenshire, True North, The Real Scotland’the campaign, led by VisitAberdeenshire and Aberdeen Festivals, sets out the city and surrounding area as a hidden cultural gem in the national crown, offering 10 diverse festivals that run throughout the year, as well as local food, excellent boutique hotels,architecture and history.
The region’s unique festivals offer everything from light and visual art and design, to an international youth festival, contemporary dance and jazz. The reopening of Aberdeen Art Gallery in 2017 and the city’s Music Hall - both following multi-million pound developments – draws attention to the city’s broader cultural offer.
Aberdeen and its surrounding region is highlighted in this promotion as a place where independent and locally-owned hotels and restaurants offer locally sourced foods and boutique hotel experiences.
The campaign, which aims to grow audiences to Aberdeen’s festivals as well as overnight weekend short stays, will be digitally-led. There will be targeted Trip Advisor and online Guardian adverts with links to the eBook as well as regional newspaper advertising.
The eBook will ‘carry’ the campaign and will tell the story of what an authentically-Scottish weekend - where visitors can experience food, fun and artisan festivals - would look like. The eBook will reveal the authentic visitor experience on offer and have links around the four ‘corners’ of the campaign – festivals, hotel partners, food and travel partners.
VisitScotland’s Growth Fund supports collaborative tourism marketing projects which focus on growth in the tourism sector and ensure that visitors experience the true Spirit of Scotland.
Growth Fund applicants are required to align their marketing with VisitScotland’s strategies and campaigns, including the global Spirit of Scotland campaign. They are also encouraged to think about how they can take advantage of Scotland’s Themed Years, with 2017 being named the Year of History, Heritage and Archaeology (HHA2017).
One of the events included in the eBook, SPECTRA - a four-day light extravaganza - is a partner funded event for HHA2017.
Jo Robinson, VisitScotland Regional Director, said: “This region has a number of strengths, not least its unique cultural offering, so I am delighted that the VisitScotland Growth Fund will help this digital campaign to spread the word even further.
“Over the last two years, Aberdeen Festivals have attracted many new visitors to this region and this year looks set to be no different, with a celebration of Aberdeen’s creative landscape, including SPECTRA, Aberdeen Jazz Festival, May Festival, NEOS, DanceLive and Sound.
“I hope this wide range of festivals - which offer something for everyone - will inspire even more people to come and visit this fantastic region.”
Steve Harris, Chair of Aberdeen Festivals and CEO of VisitAberdeenshire said:
“Securing a Growth Fund award through our festivals consortium for a second year has given the festivals and our partners a huge boost as we go into 2017. The Growth Fund award from VisitScotland has enabled us to develop new marketing collateral, such as the eBook, and given us the financial backing to market our festivals outwith the local area.
“We have also developed new partnerships as a result of the Growth Fund award with hotels, restaurants and travel providers which is central to our overall strategy of profiling Aberdeen and the North-east as a culturally exciting, authentic and high quality destination.”
For more information about the eBook, visit https://aberdeenfestivals.com/ebook
To discover more about Aberdeen Festivals, visit www.aberdeenfestivals.com
To find out more about the VisitScotland Growth Fund, go to www.visitscotland.org
Topics
- Tourism
Categories
- corporate communications
- growth fund
- year of history heritage and archaeology
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
- 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)
- For holiday information on Scotland go to www.visitscotland.com
- For information about business events in Scotland go to www.conventionscotland.com
- 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
