Scotland to target India, China

ETW Staff

Scotland will now look at setting up necessary infrastructure to exploit the expected surge in tourist traffic from India and China. Philip Riddle, chief executive of government tourism body VisitScotland said that it is focusing on attracting tourist traffic from the two emerging economies to meet its tourism trade targets.

Speaking at the World Travel Mart, Riddle predicted that the rapid industrialisation of India and China would give rise to a rich middle class with cash to spare for expensive foreign travel. He believes the tourism industry should prepare itself to profit from a long-term trend, or risk losing out to other Western tourist destinations. He considered India and China to be large markets for Scotland in five years. "It may only be a tiny proportion of their population that is going to travel, but that will still be a large number of people," he said.

Riddle said the first initiatives in this regard had already been put in place. Britain has achieved the coveted approved destination status with the Chinese authorities. But, he said, this would require a change of direction in the way Scotland was marketed, with renewed emphasis on historic castles and traditional culture, including pipe bands.