Included in this update:
Welcome to the first regional update of the year. In this update, we look at our key activity to support and promote tourism in Perthshire during the last quarter.
As we start the new year, we find our industry facing new challenges and while it is likely these will continue in the months ahead, there is also much to build on and look forward to in 2023.
We remain committed to doing what we can to support our industry. Whether it's bringing visitors to the region, offering support and guidance to businesses or working with partners to create opportunities for growth.
Our marketing, funding and business support activities are all aimed at supporting recovery and the responsible growth of this important sector of the local economy.
The last quarter has been a busy period in Perthshire – from the launch of our Great Days Out campaign to help boost visitor numbers during the winter months, to securing UK and international media coverage, supporting the Agritourism sector and celebrating the five Perthshire businesses crowned winners at the Scottish Thistle regional awards.
Find out more in this update and how our work in the region is helping to support the ambitions of the national tourism strategy, Scotland Outlook 2030, for Scotland to be a world leader in 21st century tourism.
This campaign offers discounted rail travel and entry to participating attractions in Perthshire. Running until the end of March, check out the toolkit on how you can submit an offer.
We teamed up with influencers Somewhere Wilder who visited Auchterarder and Dunkeld. They've shared posts on their social media channels of the trip. Take a look at their videos.
Some new and updated content added to visitscotland.com featuring Perthshire:
Our multimedia team have captured some stunning new autumnal imagery. Search “Loch Faskally” and “The Hermitage” – all are free for you to download and use. You can find these images on our Digital Media Library.
In November we published a brand-new video of the top “5 things to do in autumn” which starts with a trip to Perthshire. It’s available to watch from our YouTube account.
Our Corporate PR team work closely with Scottish and UK media to raise awareness of our work to promote Scotland and Perthshire to visitors and support for industry.
Some of the highlights include:
The launch of our Great Days Out in Scotland campaign featuring The Black Watch Castle and Museum and Huntingtower Castle.
Our new film guide Set in Scotland featuring films shot in Perthshire. These include Chariots of Fire (1981), Rob Roy (1995) and Get Duked (2020). We also generated national and regional coverage in STV and The Courier.
The results of the 2022 Scottish Agritourism Growth Tracker, an important sector in Perthshire.
We celebrated five Perthshire businesses crowned winners at the Scottish Thistles Regional Awards.
We hosted a journalist from Arte (European culture TV channel) who visited the region for culinary inspiration and footage. The journalist spent the day in Perthshire and met with Tom Lewis at Monachyle Mhor.
"Cosy up to autumn in Scotland" featured on globaltravelmedia.com in October 2022. The Enchanted Forest, Royal National Mod and Gleneagles's luxury wilderness experiences with Macallan all featured as part of the article.
Gleneagles featured in an article on "Scotland's winter destinations" across three Chinese publications.
Visitors to the iCentre in Perth received a warm welcome at our recent tasting event in December. Our Piper for the day - Katie of Perth & District Pipeband - played outside attracting a lot of people into the iCentre, to find some more treats waiting for them. Rascals Cafe, the Perth Gin Distillery Co and Stewarts Scotland provided snacks and drinks for our visitors. We also ran a discount on our retail throughout the day.
The event coincided with the annual Perth 5k Santa Run, which our very own Claire Gaspar helped to do a pre run warm-up on stage.
Pop in and say hello to our iCentre teams in Perth and Pitlochry - they'd all love to hear from you.
Good luck to all the Thistle Award finalists from Perthshire who will go on to complete at the Scottish Thistle Awards National Final on 9 February 2023 at Edinburgh International Conference Centre.
Regional Thistle Winners. Image credit - Chris Watt Photography.
You can browse the 2022/2023 National Finalists on the Scottish Thistle Awards website.
The Legend of the Kinnoull Hill Dragon event which took place in Perthshire was one of the many events supported by the Year of Stories Community Stories Fund.
The events were promoted across various newspaper titles in October as well as display ads, social media posts and online articles.
We partnered with News UK and Reach PLC to showcase a range of attractions through a series of online articles. The attractions featured were all part of our current Great Days out campaign.
A series of articles went live across a range of national and regional newspapers. Birnam Arts and the Beatrix Potter Exhibition featured in The Sun and The Black Watch Castle & Museum featured in Perthshire newspapers and an online article in the Daily Record.
In November we ran a campaign working with our previous Scottish Thistle Awards winners. This activity showcased the winners and their stories in articles across various newspapers and online websites:
Perthshire on social (October - December)
3.34 million reach
Number of times Perthshire content reached people on their social channels
189,610 engagements
Reactions, likes, comments, shares and saves on Perthshire posts
Reach of 219,500
Top performing post by reach on Facebook was a winter Coos’ day scene set in Blairgowrie