Workshops

Inverness/Shire, Easter Ross, Wester Ross, Caithness & Sutherland Cohorts

The outline provisional programme timings and content of the workshops is as follows:

Workshops 1, 2, 3 will be delivered on-line, broken down into multiple shorter sessions (60-90 minutes) over a 12-14 week period November 21 – February 22. The dates and timings for each session will be confirmed in early summer.  You will be sent a Let’s Grow invitation for each workshop, open your invite (from either your email or calendar) to join the workshop. Every workshop session will include a presentation and discussion to support you as you develop your own Business Improvement Plan.

The One 2 One meetings will also support you develop your Business Improvement Plan.

• Workshop 4 & 5 will be delivered as a residential workshop in February / March 2022, COVID restrictions permitting

• Workshop 6 will be delivered as a live event March 2022, COVID restrictions permitting

Workshop 1

• Theme: Adventure Tourism Market Insights.
• Objective: Understanding of your business’s market position.
• Outcome: Gained required knowledge to develop post Covid 19 marketing plan.

This workshop will help businesses understand how Adventure Tourism is evolving from the Adventure Travellers perspective and how you can put simple proactive strategies in place to keep up with these global trends and the evolving Adventure Travellers Travel Experiences. We will be looking at national and international market insights, strategic partnerships and what it means for your business. We will explore who are Scotland’s competitor set and what do we need to do in Scotland to raise our positioning?

1. Session 1;  – Market Insights – Understanding Adventure Tourism Landscape – Global Trends
2. Session 2;  – Market Insights – Understanding Adventure Tourism Landscape – National Picture
3. Session 3;  –  Consumer trends other insights, Target Markets and Customers Segments

Workshop 2

• Theme: The digital age and the experience economy within tourism.
• Objective: Understanding the use of digital technologies in your business, transforming your experience for the digital world.
• Outcome: Gained required knowledge to develop your tourism experience and prepare a digital development activity plan.

These sessions cover digital marketing and who are active users of the fast advancing world of technology, travel and accommodation products and services. The continued growth of this sector relies on keeping up with current and future technology trends particularly in travel Apps, virtual reality, immersive technology and marketing technology, so that businesses can adequately and strategically continue to engage and attract the Adventure Traveller segments. The combination of transformational technology will challenge each company to reimagine their core business, resulting in new and innovative approaches to the historic complexities of the Adventure Tourism Industry.

This session will help participants understand how to engage with their customer using digital marketing and technology and how to influence them along the customer journey and at different stages of their decision making process.We will look at digital strategies and campaigns as well as booking systems and bookable products.

Tourism is all about experiences. Providing a ‘wow’ experience for visitors is great for business.  What exactly does an ‘authentic’ tourism experience look like and how is it delivered in a business? The final session is an introduction to the fundamentals of experience development. We’ll look at at what’s essential for you  to turn a product or an activity into a memorable and remarkable experience.

1. Session 1; – Developing your digital capability and capacity
2. Session 2; – Technology solutions for your business / Bookable Products / Experiences
3. Session 3; –  Understand-ing data and how to use in the tourism industry / Experiential Tourism – Product Development and Experience Design

Workshop 3

• Theme: Routes to market and understanding the mechanics of the travel trade.
• Objective: Identify what market routes fit with your business model and aspirations.
• Outcome: Development of your marketing plan for 2021/2022.

1. Session 1; – Working with the Travel Trade (part 1)
2. Session 2; – Working with the Travel Trade (part 2)

Workshops 4 & 5

Workshops 4 & 5 will take place during an overnight 24 hour residential stay, arrival noon on day 1, departure after lunch on day 2.

As a 24 hour overnight stay, workshop 4 & 5 provides the opportunity for participants to network with like-minded professionals sharing knowledge and experiences

Workshop 4

• Theme: Adventure Tourism – an international perspective.
• Objective: Sharing best practice from different destinations.
• Outcome: Insights and ideas to assist with the development of your product and experience.

Workshop 5

• Theme: Sustainability, buzz word or the new reality?
• Objective: Insights into environmental sustainability issues and consumer drivers when spending on tourism experiences.
• Outcome: Benefit from current research and market intelligence to help align your business to a sustainable future.

An emerging current trend is the awareness on how to protect the planet’s environment and how to further develop in a proper way. The significance of sustainability is increasingly becoming travellers’ main interest, along with experiencing the outdoors. More and more tourism destinations and businesses are putting a greater emphasis in sustainability and social responsibility.

What is sustainable adventure tourism? – Sustainable adventure tourism can be defined as ‘tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, whilst addressing the needs of visitors, the industry, the environment and host communities.’

The Need for Sustainable Adventure Tourism: We want visitors to come and enjoy the wonderful natural and cultural offerings of the Scottish Highlands with minimal damage to the environment, local heritage and way of life. Sustainability needs to be at the heart of business operations.

The workshop will explore what is meant by being “sustainable.”

Workshop 6

• Theme: How was it for you?
• Objective: Feedback on the programme, sharing business improvement plans and exploring the next steps.
• Outcome: Establishing a practical road map for your product and business.

The final workshop will bring together all elements of the workshops and will be an opportunity for all participants to review their understanding of who is likely to be attracted and what else you can offer them. This includes working more closely with other providers and to grow the market share for everyone and the opportunities for you to become more profitable and for Scotland and the Highlands increase market share.

The development of the Business Improvement Plan is a key output from the programme. The session will include presentations by participants of their plans and a discussion on the most important issues / opportunities identified in the plan.

Adventure Tourism is affected (as are all tourism businesses) by a wide range of factors ranging from national economics, consumer confidence, lifestyle trends to technology developments, and changing demographics with a new generation of visitors. The session will consider the emerging trends for 2022 and 2023 and how to you keep up to date and be proactive in changing your business to react to them?