Our Meet the Team series spotlights staff across VisitScotland.
In this feature, Senior Product Owner Sam Hossack shares how tourism has been a part of her life from an early age, talks about the recent projects she’s led for VisitScotland’s industry websites, and gives insight into her most recent day trip that got the whole family involved.
My introduction to tourism started very young. As a child, I earned my pocket money by helping my mum turnover four self-catering cottages and making up welcome packs to showcase all the wonderful experiences guests could have in the local area.
Since then, 10 of my 20+ working years have been spent at VisitScotland (or Scottish Borders Tourist Board).
I started off greeting visitors in an information centre while still at school and, after studying a degree in Tourism Management, I went on to work in hotel management before returning to VisitScotland in an industry-facing role and earning a further diploma in communications.
More recently, and after gaining experience in other sectors and completing scrum training in product ownership, I’ve moved into the product management space for our industry facing websites.
A product owner is responsible for managing the development of any digital product (that could be an app, a website or something else). In my case, the products I look after are our industry facing websites.
During my six years working in this space, I have led on the roll out of our COVID funds management system, the development of our corporate website and the first phase of our Business Support Hub to name a few.
A big part of my role is joining the dots between what our users want, what VisitScotland needs to deliver to help grow the visitor economy, and our technical teams and solutions.
It requires having a strong understanding of the people who use the websites and how we can best serve them and means that I’m working with a wide range of talented colleagues and stakeholders every day.
The most recent project that I have been focused on is the delivery of our Business Support Hub. It's a central resource hub for the tourism and events industry, packed with a wealth of tailored advice and support to help businesses to start, improve and grow in a sustainable way.
We’re just at the start of the journey for the Business Support Hub and are looking forward to introducing new features and functionality to make it as simple as possible for businesses to get the support they need to grow, develop and connect with new audiences.
For example, in the next few weeks you’ll see we are testing a new chatbot on the website to help provide answers to the most important business questions and access the most relevant content even faster. We’ll also be expanding our content and continue to gather feedback direct from users and industry partners to ensure that we’re focusing our efforts in the areas that deliver the greatest value to businesses.
Without a doubt, my favourite thing about working at VisitScotland is the people – not just my wonderful colleagues but the people who make tourism what it is in Scotland.
I’ve been lucky enough to work with many people in the industry during my time at VisitScotland and it’s a real privilege to be part of the team championing Scotland’s visitor economy.
Having two young children (plus an elderly westie), I’m always looking for somewhere beautiful where I can keep the kids entertained outdoors. We’re lucky to have an abundance of that in Scotland!
My most recent day trip took us to Dalkeith Country Park for a morning of treetop adventures with Go Ape and an afternoon of exploration in Fort Douglas (with a healthy dose of zorbing in the mix too!).
The weather was glorious, so we enjoyed a stroll around the grounds and a bit of retail therapy before heading home.
