To achieve this, through August and September 2023, we hosted 14 in-person meetings, bringing together local businesses and communities in 14 areas right across the South of Scotland.  This was supplemented by a further 13 digital meetings, looking at specific sectors/themes. 

Our 14 in-person meetings allowed local businesses to:  

• Feed into the development of the South of Scotland’s Responsible Tourism Strategy which will underpin the work of all related agencies for the next decade. 
• Feed into a major SSDA seasonality marketing campaign, to extend the visitor season.   
• Decide how the local area should be marketed by the SSDA, including on the ‘Scotland Starts Here’ website and app, and in newly commissioned short promotional films about each of thee 14 local areas, paid for by the SSDA, which all local businesses can use. 
• Agree how to raise awareness locally of the ‘Scotland Starts Here’ brand and assets, so it supports local businesses.  
• Agree actionable points which the SSDA can advance in the next six months to meaningfully support local businesses. 
• Share and build new local collaborations between local businesses. 

What we heard locally.

We were delighted to have 3,500 submissions overall on Menti across these 14 in-person meetings, as well as really insightful discussions between businesses

Click the below links to read the full notes from each of the 14 in-person meetings: 

Local Priorities

What we are doing next

Given the positive feedback from these meetings and this Locally Led Destination Development approach, we have committed to continuing these discussions, with two further meetings in all 14 areas (February and November), one in-person and one digital. 

Below are the proposed dates for 2024 (full details to follow): 

We recognise that, while listening to local businesses is important, the SSDA’s real value is in getting things done and demonstrably delivering on local priorities.  We therefore want to be clear that at the February 2024 meeting we will: 

1. Present the South of Scotland Responsible Tourism Strategy, highlighting which specific points made locally have directly fed into the strategy, and developing a local plan of how to work with and benefit from this new strategy and united approach. 
2. Go through the local priorities identified at the last meeting and update on what specific actions the SSDA has taken to advance these priorities. 
3. Present on the SSDA’s £60k+ Seasonality Campaign, showing how local input fed into its design and delivery, going through the results so far, and showing how businesses can continue to get involved. 
4. Present the new webpage on consumer-facing the ‘Scotland Starts Here’ website and app, about the local area, highlighting how points made in the last meeting fed into how the area is represented, and giving local control on an on-going basis for the content of this page. 
5. Update on the production of a 60-90 second promotional video about that area, informed by local input at the last meeting, which will be freely available for all to use. 
6. Further advance plans to raise awareness locally of the ‘Scotland Starts Here’ brand and assets, so it works for local businesses. 
7. Review local collaborations which have developed since the last meeting and agree how best to promote and support these.