Tourism businesses' views sought on destination investment

Tourism is a major sector for the Highlands and Islands. To help grow and develop the sector, Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) has supported a partnership approach to developing and marketing specific destination areas since 2012.  

This has included working with and funding Destination Management Organisations (DMOs) to build leadership and partnership for the benefit of tourism businesses, communities and local stakeholders.

To find out how this approach has made a difference, HIE has commissioned economic development consultants ekosgen to produce a review of the support given to tourism destinations across the Highlands and Islands.

As part of the review, businesses are being invited to complete a short survey before December 14. The agency is looking for business views on the impacts of destination activities, which could include infrastructure development, business support and destination marketing.

Anna Miller, head of tourism at HIE, said: “We want to ensure that HIE’s support and approach to the sustainable growth of tourism across the Highlands and Islands is the best it can be. We’d like to gather the views of businesses about destinations and the resulting benefits and impact of HIE’s support to shape our future approach towards destination development.”

Businesses working directly with HIE and DMOs may have been contacted directly with a link to the survey, and any tourism related businesses who would like to feed in their views can do so here.