June 2017: Trade news from NC500
It’s been an incredibly busy few weeks for the North Coast 500 team, and we’ve got lots to share with you in this, our first Trade News post.
First things first, we want to let you know about some organisational changes at North Coast 500.
It’s been an incredibly busy few weeks for the North Coast 500 team, and we’ve got lots to share with you in this, our first Trade News post.
First things first, we want to let you know about some organisational changes at North Coast 500.
As you may know, the North Coast 500 project was officially launched by the North Highland Initiative back in 2015, with the aim of driving tourism and economic growth in the region.
Since then, the route has enjoyed enormous success – as a recent report by HIE demonstrated.
The way in which the route has taken means that it’s now viable for North Coast 500 to stand on its own feet as a separate limited company, with its own board of directors and staff.
Why do we want to do this?
Well, we’ve seen many tourism projects fail in the past because they weren’t financially sustainable.
Just as momentum starts to build, their funding is cut, resources disappear and everyone is back to square one. We wanted to create a truly sustainable tourism project, which generates its own income that can be reinvested back into marketing and developing the route.
Through memberships, merchandising and sponsorships, North Coast 500 Ltd will raise its own funds to finance its online presence, advertising campaigns and useful tools for local businesses and visitors alike. This privately funded business model has been lauded by public agencies and the Scottish Government as a ground-breaking way of delivering for tourism in Scotland, and indeed for the rest of the UK, and moves away from a dependency on public funding to deliver tourism promotion and development.
We’re making great progress on this front already, having launched a new merchandise range in the past few weeks, announced a partnership with Rough Guides, and even unveiling an official North Coast 500 beer.
Although we will continue to work closely with NHI, we are now in the process of moving to new offices in Inverness – a move that makes sense, given that the NC500 begins and ends in the Highland capital, and many of our partners such as VisitScotland are there.
Our vision remains the same: we exist to create positive economic and social benefits for communities and businesses across the North Highlands – not just those directly on the route – and we want to encourage visitors to explore everything this amazing area has to offer.
We look forward to working with you all to build on the good work that’s been done so far.
The North Coast 500 team
