As part of our new marketing strategy, we’ll focus on driving global demand for sustainable travel experiences in Scotland, with an emphasis on encouraging year-round visits to help spread tourism across regions and seasons.
Our strategy is built around identifying key moments in the visitor journey and delivering the right message, in the right place, at the right time. This is an end-to-end marketing approach that spans product development, routes to market and the promotion of Scotland as a must visit, year-round destination.
It’s important we continue to monitor booking trends and adapt to evolving consumer behaviour in response to global changes.By consistently tracking insights and analysing trends, we remain agile in responding to the shifting dynamics of our international markets.
This article looks at two of our core markets, Germany and France and shares an update on our latest and upcoming marketing activity, where we’re focused on increasing bookings, encouraging longer stays, and strengthening Scotland’s appeal.
In order to reach the right audiences with the right messages, we need to understand what is driving visitor decisions and behaviours. Our marketing activity centres around key themes that resonate with our target visitors. These are:
In 2023, Germany was Scotland’s second largest international source market in terms of volume and third largest in value with 9% of all overseas visits to Scotland and 7% of all overseas spend (IPS2023).
German travellers to Scotland are, for the most part, independent in nature and travelling with their spouse or partner. In terms of age range, they are fairly evenly spread between 25 and 64.
This audience tends to live in or near key city and transport hubs in North Rhine Westphalia, Bavaria, Lower Saxony, Baden Wuerttemberg, Hesse, Berlin and Hamburg.
We see high repeat visits from the German market (58%), and they travel widely especially on return journeys. Growing direct transport links mean there’s excellent opportunities for regional and seasonal spread.
They’re interested in:
In 2023, France was Scotland’s third largest international source market in terms of volume and second largest from Europe for value with 8% of all overseas visits to Scotland and 8% of all overseas spend (IPS 2023).
French visitors tend to mostly travel as couples and are aged between 25-44 years. They include a growing number of first timers (63%).
This audience tends to live in or near key city and transport hubs such as Paris-IDF, Lyon, south-west around Toulouse or the north-west around Normandy.
While most will visit on touring holidays through the spring and summer, an increasing number of first-time visitors are coming to Scotland for short breaks. This audience offers good seasonality supported by strong year-round connectivity.
They’re interested in:
The themes these markets are interested in align with our Good for the Soul messaging, which focuses on the restorative and enriching qualities of time spent in Scotland as well as bringing Scotland to life through our people.
Through this approach, we aim to achieve spread, spend, sustainability, and satisfaction for the industry. Read more on Good for the Soul.
Using these top-level themes, which we know people search for, we can all develop new content – articles, blogs, video, images and promotions – designed to pull additional traffic into Scotland, your local area and drive business to you.
Image: People having a fun encounter with a goat at Lunan Bay Farm. VisitScotland / Luigi Di Pasquale ©
This includes activities funded as part of a ringfenced project to drive incremental visits by highlighting Scotland’s increasing direct access options through 2025/26.
We’ll be looking to drive demand and interest for autumn and winter breaks in Scotland from international markets with seasonal connectivity. And we’ll be targeting those longer stay German travellers who explore widely and enjoy engaging with local communities across Scotland.
These activities will complement our core international and partnership activities. We’ll want to work closely with industry partners to map out autumn and winter experiences that we can showcase as part of this activity – more to come on our plans shortly.
Our marketing strategy for 2025-26 draws on the successful approach and building blocks deployed in 2024-25, positioning Scotland as an inclusive, year-round destination that delivers powerfully enriching personal experiences. Here’s a round-up of some of that activity.
Trade events and programme development
Partnerships
Media and global PR
