The South of Scotland set itself a five-year (2020-2025) Covid-recovery target of establishing a visitor economy worth £750m and increasing the associated number of jobs by 6,500. It successfully achieved these targets two years earlier than planned.

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We want to maintain the positive momentum and build on this success by thinking with unprecedented ambition about the coming decade. We want to develop and grow the potential of tourism and hospitality in the South of Scotland, and we will achieve this through a ‘Team South’ approach which has partnership and collaboration at its heart.

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Following consultations with hundreds of businesses, enterprises and communities, this strategy has been developed by the two local authorities, VisitScotland, the SSDA and SOSE. It sets out an inspiring vision for the coming decade:

“We will make the South of Scotland a thriving, responsible, year-round destination; leveraging our unique geography, culture, history and landscape to create Scotland’s fastest growing visitor economy, attracting international visitors, creating quality employment and powering community prosperity.”

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Through this Responsible Tourism Strategy, we will:

• increase our visitor economy by £1 billion, to £1.76bn by 2034.
• support a further 6,000 jobs, to 20,000 FTE posts by 2034.

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We will achieve this radical growth by:

a) extending the season and developing the South of Scotland as a year-round ‘rural escape’ destination for the 14m people within 2-4 hours travel time;

b) becoming a ‘go to’ rather than a ‘go through’ destination; and

c) increasing international visitor numbers, who spend significantly more and stay longer than domestic visitors.

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We will invest in building reasons to visit the South of Scotland, developing high quality experiences for visitors, developing our voice and brand, and better telling our story. We will be loud and we will be proud.

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While achieving this, we will always remember that this is a Responsible Tourism Strategy. We will not shy from our responsibilities to: our communities, our climate, our natural capital, our culture, our visitors, our children and our workforce. We will create a thriving visitor economy which: delivers economic prosperity and community benefit; supports quality, year-round employment; minimises negative economic, environmental and social impacts; champions accessibility, inclusion and diversity; enhances our natural world; supports the industry on its journey to achieving Net Zero; and has community leadership, collaboration and partnership at its core.

• Introduction
• Our Visitor Economy
• Our Responsibilities
• Our Strategic Context
• Our Ambition for Growth
• Our Target Markets and Segments
• Our Vision
• Our strategic objectives