Galloway Ayrshire 2030 Tourism Vision

Why we need to develop our Tourism Visitor Vision together

Tourism and our visitor economy are both our best opportunity for economic revitalisation and our biggest threat to community cohesion and infrastructure.

 OverTourism disproportionally affects small Upland and Coastal communities in Galloway, Ayrshire and coastal Galloway. “Overtourism is having people visiting before you have the facilities to enable them to enjoy it.”

 As Emeritus Professor Richard Butler, Strathclyde Business School says “OverTourism is not inevitable anywhere. It is generally a result of places and people not looking ahead, not deciding what is acceptable and what is not”

 Summer visitors who claim our countryside for free open air holiday and spend very little within our communities; often leave rubbish for us to clear and contribute very little to our visitor economy.

Other visitors who come by car can both create and experience frustrating  choke points in summer. Coordinating visitors can improve the visitor experience and increase spend in both our visitor economy and our natural, cultural and built heritage.

Gateway centres with car parks that signpost attractions and encourage good experience and spending in local businesses, could provide toilets, shops and be the starting point for guides, trips, tours and engagement with businesses and visitor attractions.

Shoulder Season Our visitor infrastructure, lacks footfall outside summer, in the shoulder months.

Our visitor economy is pressured financially and needs help to rebuild an offering that attracts visitors from January to April and September to November.

Broadly, campaigners for and against a Galloway Ayrshire National Park agree on the issues; that overTourism is a problem; that too many visitors in summer and insufficient in shoulder season threatens our existing visitor economy and that we need Infrastructure before any influx of visitors.

Mairi Gougeon, our Rural Cabinet Secretary has requested a “National Park created for the people of Galloway by the people of Galloway, South and East Ayrshire”

Rural affairs funding for a National Park would be £3m up to £10m that the current National parks receive from the Scottish Ministers. This is all subject to a Report by NatureScot, who have an ongoing process to complete.

How would this help our visitor economy? We do not know.

Informal evidence from LLTNP suggests that Ministers are wishing to impose a Nature agenda over any community or visitor agenda.

Ministers and NatureScot may wish to impose terms on any National Park that make its contribution to our communities and our visitor economy unhelpful and unviable.

We need our MSPs to work with Mairi Gougeon and NatureScot to resolve this and focus Our National Park to be Ours for our communities, our nature and our visitors.

Professor Butler again

“National Park designation normally brings with it an increased awareness of the region designated, and an increased appeal to tourists. In some cases this is because people "collect" national parks and also assume the designation means the place is worth visiting, although they may be ignorant of anything about the area. Designation is often made for that purpose, to deliberately increase tourism as a form of economic development, rather than being focused on the original purposes of national parks, preservation of the landscape (and communities therein) and its features (living and physical) , either because they are unique and impressive, or because they are representative of specific ecosystems. Designation can also serve political purposes in terms of rewarding proponents of a park, rewarding representatives of the area (eg MPs, MSPs, etc) by stimulating economic development through the park, and also simply for being seen to be doing something. From afar, the last three points would appear possibly to apply in the case of Galloway more than the preservation aspect.

National Parks in Scotland  should apply an integrated approach to people and nature. They aim to

1.     conserve and enhance their natural and cultural heritage,

2.      promote sustainable use of their natural resources;

3.      promote understanding and enjoyment;

4.      promote sustainable economic and social development of their communities.

Unless Our National Park can help support ALL these objectives through developing our visitor economy and our community infrastructure, No National Park will be needed.

We need our Enterprise agencies SOSE and Scottish Enterprise and Rural secretary Mairi Gougeon to commit to communities being at the heart of regeneration and revitalising our nature and our visitor economy.

If Enterprise funding and rural funding can stop our UNESCO GSA Biosphere from closing then we need to take that opportunity as a New Beginning; to monetise our Biosphere and our community infrastructure so that Galloway Ayrshire has a UK wide appeal for Shoulder season visitors; we then need to increase our capacity of infrastructure before any further influx of summer tourists.

 Mairi Gougeon selected Galloway Ayrshire to become Scotland’s third National Park back in July 2024. Thus far our Enterprise agency SOSE and our 3 Councils have been unable to confirm support for Galloway Ayrshire National Park.

This may be because there is No agreed Galloway Ayrshire 2030 Vision or it may be that these lead agencies are yet to agree “conditions” upon which Our Galloway Ayrshire National Park can be supported.

What does this mean? If we can find terms on which a National Park can be made viable for our communities, our visitor economy and our nature, then we should be asking our MSPs, our 3 councils and SOSE and Scottish Enterprise to support these conditions for Our National Park.

 If we can agree the support that Mairi Gougeon can provide by 2027 and 2028, then we need  “in advance” to prioritise for 2025 and 2026 our shoulder season visitor economy. We need to incentivise our existing visitor economy to stay open in the shoulder months and we need to be constantly improving our Galloway Ayrshire visitor offering to prioritise an increased spend in all our community visitor infrastructure assets and to coordinate development alongside marketing, monetisation and managing assets together with rangering, guiding and enforcement of reasonable limits to potential antisocial behaviour.

 No National Park can help us before 2027 and 2028. A wrongly set up or wrongly funded or wrongly managed National Park can have profoundly negative impact on both our communities and our visitor economy.

 We need to support our No National Park colleagues UNTIL THE DEAL IS RIGHT FOR GALLOWAY AYRSHIRE NATIONAL PARK. At that point, we need to encourage  our communities and all those passionately campaigning for and against a National Park to unite to make Our National Park revitalise out visitor economy and our visitor offering.

Our Galloway Ayrshire Enterprise budget is controlled by Kate Forbes, through SOSE South of Scotish Enterprise, who operate from Stranraer to Berwick, and in turn sponsor our GSA Biosphere – our UNESCO Biosphere designation, and SSDA, our Destination alliance; Scottish Enterprise supports Ayrshire.  Short term funds have been available for these initiatives; our funding need is both structural and long term, so concern about GSA Biosphere long term funding is real as is the perceived and actual role of GSA Biosphere in helping attract visitors who actively support our Upland and Coastal producers and nature and outdoor activity base of visitor businesses.

 SOSE have invested £200,000 to enable Scottish Dark Skies Observatory, SDSO to come to Clatteringshaws. John Dougan at FLS has sold Clatteringshaws Tourism Infrastructure to SDSO. We need to persuade John Dougan and FLS to “ringfence” this £200,000 for re-investment in a Galloway Ayrshire 2030 visitor Infrastructure fund. We need our MSPs and SOSE to help us achieve this. We must preserve this £200,000 for investment into our much needed visitor Infrastructure.

Galloway Ayrshire board members of SOSE are Russell Griggs, Jeremy Sainsbury, Duncan McConchie Kirsten Hannay Rory Christie and Jane Morisson Ross. We need their help and encouragement to unite our visitor economy and communities around an achievable 2030 Tourism Vision.

 We need to achieve this Vision with or without Our National Park. If we can achieve a governance and funding of Our National Park that truly supports Our Vision then we should welcome this. We need our MSPs, our Councils, SOSE, Kate Forbes and Mairi Gougeon to help us work towards this.

  Professor Peter Butler, again “The key element is change, and whether that change or all the changes are desired or not, and whether they are being locally  wanted and needed or not. Much comes down to discussion and consultation rather than being told what will or might happen. Local agreement and support is normally and widely regarded as essential for successful development of anything like a National Park which is almost certain to increase tourism of various kinds. One will never get unanimity at local or any level, some will always want more, some will want less or no development”

 Investment and support for carefully managed long term achievable goals will achieve positive visitor outcomes that long outlast short term poilitical and economic cycles.

Focussed objectives and tough talk with funders, supporters and those who naturally and sometimes rightly resist change, can lead to hard won positive outcomes and real 2030 and 2035 deliverables for all of us.

Our communities, our visitor economy and our day and overnight visitors all have much to gain from a successful and focussed Galloway Ayrshire 2030 Tourism Vision