How many of us  are involved with rural communities in particular where visitors are welcomed but tourism is very much seen as a dirty word? 

We all know that over tourism – whether you believe it’s a thing or not – is an emotive concept and triggered by communities feeling overwhelmed and disempowered by tourism activity.  This is often due to lack of appropriate infrastructure to enable locals to readily cope.  And resentment emerges. 

But maybe another reason why the T word is an issue is it focuses the mind on the tourist and what they are all about.  Whereas if we talk much more about the visitor economy we get a much more rounded appreciation of the value of people travelling to and exploring a local  area.  

The visitor economy concept helps everyone consider the entire supply chain of activities, businesses, and services that attract visitors and support their needs – which often overlap with the needs of local people. 

The visitor economy does include tourism, but it also extends beyond just tourism to encompass the infrastructure and services that support visitors, and their impact on the local community. 

The visitor economy is certainly a key driver of economic development and social well-being.  And when explained in these terms it is much easier to empathise with why tourism and visitor activity can bring added value.   In many rural and island communities, tourism is a primary industry and it is tourism that creates revenue, supports job creation, prompts transport and infrastructure investments, and benefits local communities. 

The visitor economy includes a wide range of components including accommodation, attractions, transport, food and drink, retail and events.   When we look at destination competence as part of our Press Pause initiative we look at 16 different criteria which are each part of the visitor economy.  And many of these are as important to locals as they are to visitors.

As with many aspects of community led tourism it is really important that we think about the language we are using and remember that words and phrases can have different connotations depending who you are speaking to.  We are definitely guilty of using a lot of jargon!

What I am really getting at is if the ‘T’ word is an issue let’s think why that may be the case and what we are all trying to achieve in the long run – which is for our communities – the people and the place – to be better off as a consequence of tourism. 

This does then beg the question ‘if tourism is all about the tourist then surely we need to rethink the phrase community led tourism’?

SCOTO’s ambition is to recalibrate tourism in Scotland to deliver for our communities and the environment first, visitors second

So… are we fundamentally talking about ‘localism’ as defined by the Cambridge Dictionary: the idea that people should have control over what happens in their local area, that local businesses should be supported, and that differences between places should be respected…

Or does that take us way beyond the visitor economy - or.... is that the whole point ? 

Carron Tobin, Executive Director, SCOTO