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Article published 30/09/2025

What is the Tourism and Hospitality Industry Leadership Group?

The Tourism and Hospitality Industry Leadership Group (ILG) provides strategic direction to drive Scotland’s ambition to be a world leader in 21st century tourism. 

The group provides strategic leadership to help grow the visitor economy and champions the national tourism strategy, Scotland Outlook 2030, a key component of the Scottish Government’s National Strategy for Economic Transformation (NSET). 

The latest meeting took place in September 2025. Read the meeting round-up for an overview of what was discussed.

Latest meeting update

The latest meeting was held on 17 September 2025, chaired by Marc Crothall, Chief Executive of the STA.
The agenda covered two key topics; a deep dive into the tourism and hospitality workforce and the public sector’s data and artificial intelligence (AI) priorities.

The Tourism and Hospitality workforce
South of Scotland Enterprise (SOSE) began the meeting by presenting on their collaborative approach to building an agile and responsive skills system across the region. David Hope-Jones, CEO of SSDA, outlined the extensive work undertaken to map workforce challenges, identify industry priorities and develop actions to seize new opportunities. Members of the Proud and Valued People mission group also shared valuable insights, drawing on their expertise in skills development.

Data and Artificial Intelligence
Tom Wilkinson (Head of Data Science)  and Suresh Kumar (Deputy Director for Innovation and Industrial Transformation, Scottish Government), shared the development of a vision for public sector data in Scotland. This includes steps to ensure AI adoption drives economic growth and support for SMEs to engage with AI.

Cat Leaver, our Director of Strategy and Competitive Intelligence, highlighted how VisitScotland is embracing technology and AI to unlock opportunities for innovation, creativity, and growth in the visitor economy.

Read minutes from previous ILG meetings on the Scottish Government website


This was followed by Joshua Ryan-Saha, from Traveltech for Scotland TourismTech, who presented on the Scottish Tourism Data Partnership and its four priority workstreams. These are:

  • investment opportunity mapping
  • visitor flow management
  • business intelligence for tourism communities
  • knowledge graphs

The session closed with a panel discussion, where ILG members put their questions to Cat, Josh, Suresh and Tom.

Ministerial closing remarks

Richard Lochhead MSP, Minister for Business, closed the meeting by reflecting on a brilliant programme of summer events; including the Orkney Island Games and the Tall Ships Races 2025 in Aberdeen.

He welcomed the encouraging discussions on workforce development and Data and AI, and he expressed optimism about the future of tourism in Scotland. He thanked ILG members for their continued leadership.

VisitScotland update from Cat Leaver

Cat Leaver, our Director of Strategy and Competitive Intelligence, joined the September ILG meeting.

Reflecting on the session, Cat commented:

“It's always great to have the opportunity to spotlight the work teams across VisitScotland are doing in embracing data and technology to unlock new opportunities for innovation, creativity, productivity, and growth in the visitor economy.

I joined the recent ILG meeting to do just that and was met with energy and enthusiasm, highlighting both the exciting potential of these tools and the importance of working together across public and private sectors to harness them responsibly. It was inspiring to see members’ curiosity, commitment, and leadership as we shape a future-ready tourism sector for Scotland.”

Cat Leaver, Director of Strategy and Competitive Interlligence
Cat Leaver, Director of Strategy and Competitive Interlligence

Background to ILG

The ILG is a network of individuals from across the public, private and the third sector. Together, they have knowledge and experience of destinations, sectors and businesses spanning Scotland, the UK and across the globe.  

The ILG co-chaired by Richard Lochhead, Minister for Business, and Marc Crothall, Chief Executive of the Scottish Tourism Alliance. Judy Rae, of OnFife Cultural Trust, is vice-chair.   

This group helps to drive recovery and sustainable growth across both tourism and hospitality in the long term. It also supports work to grow the value and enhance the benefits of tourism across Scotland. 

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