A difficult question. There is no doubt that the Moray and Black Isle coasts are popular with both day trippers and tourists who come to enjoy the natural assets of the area whether that be via walking the core paths, cycling or staying in local holiday homes, B&B’s and hotels. Initiatives are underway to attract more tourists, such as the Black Isle Tourist Trail, as well as established ones such as the National Cycle Route that utilises the recently reinstated Cromarty Ferry. The value of tourism as a whole to Scotland has been placed at £11 billion per annum[1]. When broken down by region, the Highlands and Moray had a gross value for sustainable tourism of some £278.6million.[2] The 5th biggest attraction in Aberdeenshire was the Scottish Dolphin Centre at Spey Bay some 92,000 visitors in 2013. There are no figures readily available for the Black Isle and the rest of the Moray coast, however, if a value of one tenth of the total for the regions is taken, this equates to a further £27.8 million.
STS – value £500K, it risks all of this – how do we want to promote our area to visitors?
[1] Scottish Tourism Alliance 2012 – Tourism Scotland 2020: The future of our industry, in our hands
[2] http://www.visitscotland.org/pdf/Tourism%20in%20Scotland’s%20Regions%202013.pdf
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