Press release -
Response to Forth Road Bridge closure
The Forth Road Bridge, which was closed for repairs, will not reopen until the New Year.
Traffic Scotland said:
“Following a meeting of the Scottish Government Resilience Committee (SGoRR), chaired by the First Minister, the decision to close has been taken after inspections carried out by specialist engineers and following advice and assessment of the fault by independent experts.
“Additional rail capacity was put on overnight and a full travel plan is being prepared for the duration of the closure. This will include further additional rail services. All other options are being explored including a dedicated bus corridor with park and ride facilities and passenger ferry services across the Forth.”
In response to this, and the implications it will have on visitors in Scotland, VisitScotland has added Traffic Scotland news to its live Twitter feed on the homepage of visitscotland.com so that visitors can keep up to speed with information as and when it comes through.
Malcolm Roughead, Chief Executive of VisitScotland said:
“To minimise impact around the closure of the Forth Road Bridge, we would advise all tourism businesses affected to communicate alternative routes and public transport options on all their channels.
“We would also advise visitors to Scotland to go to our website for links to advice and updates on the issue. With a busy winter festival and Hogmanay season ahead, we are working closely with businesses and the Scottish Government to ensure we are doing all we can to smooth this process and keep visitors reaching all our wonderful regions and destinations across the country.”
Live traffic updates can be found on trafficscotland.org or by following twitter.com/trafficscotland
Further information on the planned works: transportscotland.gov.uk/project/forth-replacement-crossing/information-road-users
Full press release: trafficscotland.org
Topics
- Tourism
Categories
- forth road bridge
- corporate communications
Regions
- Scotland
Notes to Editors
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- 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.
- According to a recent Deloitte study, the tourism economy supports 270,000 jobs in Scotland in 20,000 diverse businesses. The same study calculates that the tourism economy contributes £11 billion annually (direct and indirect impact, including day visits) and supports around 10 per cent of employment in Scotland. Almost 16 million tourists take overnight trips to Scotland.
- 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
Year of Food and Drink 2015- 2015 is the Year of Food and Drink, a celebration of Scotland’s natural larder and the role that food and drink plays in shaping our economic success.
- Scotland generates over £2.5m per day through food and drink tourism.
- A series of themed months will create an appetite for key areas of Scotland’s food and drink industries – from seafood and whisky to berries and high-quality meat
- For more information, visit www.visitscotland.com/tastescotland
