2025-27 Business Plan
The SSDA is a small team of five staff members, working passionately to promote and develop the South of Scotland as a leading tourism destination, and to support hundreds of businesses and communities across our visitor economy.
Last year, in partnership with VisitScotland, SOSE, and our two councils, we co-launched the bold and forward-thinking Responsible Tourism Strategy, which will grow the value of South of Scotland tourism by £1 billion and support 20,000 jobs. To ensure transparency and accountability, we publish quarterly reports alongside our four partner agencies, detailing progress against this strategy.
We’re now excited to share our 2025–27 Business Plan, outlining 58 clear and actionable projects that will help deliver the strategy. Avoiding jargon and waffle, the plan offers a concise summary of each project—explaining what we will achieve, how we’ll do it, who we’ll work with, the success metrics, and which SSDA team member is leading.
Each of these 58 projects is rooted in business feedback from across the region and addresses every aspect of destination development: from marketing, PR, social media and visitor information, to developing new attractions, the Thistle Awards, major events, equestrian tourism, dark skies, trails, public transport, toilets, signage, fishing, golf, agritourism, cycling, workforce development, Center Parcs, advocacy, net zero, Borders Rail—and much more.
Each of these 58 projects is rooted in business feedback from across the region and addresses every aspect of destination development: from marketing, PR, social media and visitor information, to developing new attractions, the Thistle Awards, major events, equestrian tourism, dark skies, trails, public transport, toilets, signage, fishing, golf, agritourism, cycling, workforce development, Center Parcs, advocacy, net zero, Borders Rail—and much more.
Prefer visuals? A live, interactive mind-map version of the plan is available below, letting you explore every element in an intuitive format.
How to use the mind map....
How to use the mind map
Click the ‘Open in new tab’ button in the bottom right-hand corner to navigate yourself.
Click the three lines next to a project for a one-sentence summary of: what our objective is, where we’re up to, what the next step is, and who the lead contact is in the team.
Click the right-hand arrow on the right to track through the five strands
