Gateway London

Next year promises to be a big year for travel to the United Kingdom, with the London Olympics the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, and other major events going on. It is a wonderful opportunity to encourage people who will obviously honey-potting around London to come to Scotland. Starting this month I've begun working on a campaign to promote Scotland as an add-on destination: through social media, articles, blogging and so on - it is also something to build upon as London still remains a key hub, Olympics or no Olympics.

The Olympics will be on from the 27th of July to the 12th of August, and visitors will be coming and going over that fortnight period rather than staying for the whole time - so, many will be interested in seeing and doing other things while over here. London itself will be a big draw, as will some of the top attractions in the south, such as Bath, Stonehenge and Oxford; but, it is a huge pie and there will be some who want to go to Scotland, while there are many who will be undecided. The Games finish slap bang in the middle of the Edinburgh Festival, which in itself is one of the top things to come to the UK to do, so we have that to help push the idea as well.

I would like to work with attractions, tour companies and hotels in London to create something of an Olympics/Scotland vacation package (I know that some of the hotels will be less than keen to see potential bed-nights zipping up the M1, but, I think there will be a struggle for beds during that time - this in itself could help encourage visitors to seek alternative arrangements (i.e. Scotland)). I'm not sure how many of those travelling to the Big Smoke will realise how far out of the city the Games are - I'm sure plenty of them will stay in Central London; and promoting rail to Edinburgh or Glasgow will be a good option I feel (I will be working with the BritRail team over here). For those staying away out at Docklands and closer to the 'village', flights from London City would be an alternative.

If anyone out there has ideas, thoughts or comments - or would like to discuss with me working together or collaboration on these packages, it would be great to hear from you.

All the best guys,

David