Visit Scotland | Alba

iKnow Partner programme

Promoting the depth of knowledge found amongst Scottish tourism businesses.

Is your business full of untapped expertise and local know-how that would enhance the experience of our visitors? Becoming part of our iKnow Partner programme is a great way to demonstrate your value as a source of useful and inspiring visitor information.

It’s open to businesses that are part of our Quality Assurance scheme (and free to community groups and social enterprises). Members can use the easily recognisable ‘iKnow Scotland’ branding as a signal to visitors that you’re a VisitScotland accredited authority on topics relevant to their stay in Scotland.

We also encourage businesses to get involved with our iKnow community forum too. It’s an easy to use feature where you can share your know-how with a huge online audience and make a real difference to someone’s trip to Scotland. 

How to join the iKnow Partner programme

Three easy steps

  1. 1

    Meet the criteria

    Read our criteria document to see if your business can join the programme and start sharing your knowledge of Scotland and the local area. 

    iKnow Partner programme criteria

    Published July 2019

    Download (104Kb)
  2. 2

    Information templates

    Please ensure all the criteria requirements are in place. We have iKnow Partner information templates you may wish to use, we've created some guidelines to help you with this. The templates can be printed and displayed around your business for guests and visitors to read. There is also a Customer Service Promise document for you to download and display. 
     

    iKnow Partner guidelines for completing information templates

    Published March 2019

    Please read these guidelines for completing the downloadable information templates

    Download (1,202Kb)
  3. 3

    Apply for the programme

    Confirm that you have everything in place to meet the iKnow Partner programme criteria and then apply! 

iKnow Partner programme - information templates

Published March 2019

Please complete these templates with information about your local area

Download (3Mb)

iKnow Partner programme - example information sheets

Published March 2019

These example information sheets will help you to complete your own local information

Download (717Kb)

iKnow Partner Customer Service Promise

Published March 2019

Please display this promise in your business where visitors will be able to see.

Download (550Kb)
Gallery item 0 iKnow Scotland Gallery item 1 Gallery item 2

Training and online resources

Online training to help you build your local knowledge or customer service skills

Glasgow Welcomes

www.glasgowwelcomes.com

A programme to enhance customer service across tourism, leisure and hospitality in Glasgow

Our Edinburgh

www.etag.org.uk

Online training - this one-hour course costs £6.50 and can help you to build local knowledge.

Be Lanarkshire

www.visitlanarkshire.com

A free online module to help you learn about Lanarkshire and improve your customer service skills.

Ayrshire Smiles

ayrshire-smiles.com

Free online training to help you promote the local area and improve the visitor experience

Essential Scotland

www.mbtag.uk

Online training module for tourism businesses in Midlothian and Scottish Borders.

Our Hebridean Welcome

www.visitouterhebrides.co.uk/industry

A free online destination and customer service training programme for all tourism related businesses in the Outer Hebrides.

Paisley Welcomes

www.paisley.is

A free online training platform suitable for visitor facing staff and volunteers in Paisley and Renfrewshire.