The Scottish Tourism Alliance Signature Conference

Last week, Scotland Food & Drink was proud to play a part in the biggest tourism event of the year, the Scottish Tourism Month Signature Conference – a collaboration between Scottish Tourism Alliance, ASVA (Association of Scottish Visitor Attractions) and ASSC (Association of Scottish self-caterers).

Food and drink, and tourism, are inextricably linked sectors - one can’t exist without the other.  The visitor experience is fundamentally enhanced when local produce is enjoyed and the story told, providing that taste of place that we know travellers are looking for now.  

While we aspire to become a globally recognised tourism destination, there is already so much success that we can be proud of, which was evident when over 300 delegates came together at the P&J Live in Aberdeen, to discuss key issues for the industry and connect with each other – the tourism family is a strong and supportive one.

Working together is so important for our food tourism ambition, which is why we are proud to chair the new Food Tourism Partnership, created with Scottish Tourism Alliance, Scottish Government and Scottish Agritourism to build on the work of the Food Tourism Action Plan.

Scotland’s Regional Food Tourism Ambassadors have been face of food and drink travel in their areas over a two year pilot period, delivering impactful projects such as report on remote working opportunities by Jemma Reid; creation of Moray Food and Drink Experiences by food writer and workshop host; Ghillie Basan; a Supper Club series to showcase local produce by Emma Clark, at Glenegedale House; a Food Connections podcast and Scottish EatWell guide by Dr Laura Wyness and Love of Aberdeenshire film series by The Kilted Chef.

Our Regional Food Groups have also played a pivotal role in the growth of food tourism delivering everything from food trails to festivals and initiatives to make local food more available to visitors and communities.

The Scotland Food & Drink Partnership’s Regional Food Fund has supported more than 160 projects so far, including a collaboration between Love Loch Lomond and Experience Glasgow Food and Drink to deliver a new foraging and cooking tour and an initiative by Locally Away to sell more local produce into self-catering properties

Our food tourism ambition is unabated, cemented in the national food and drink strategy, ‘Sustaining Scotland. Supplying the World.’. We need all tourism businesses to be sourcing Scottish, working with us and our suppliers to give both visitors and locals a memorable food and drink experience.

We will soon be launching an online resource on visitscotland.org as a central point of information and advice about food tourism development as well as a programme to help food tourism businesses become online bookable.

As an industry, there is a lot of work to do to reach our full potential, however,  weeks like this show that there is so much optimism for the future success of food and drink tourism across Scotland.