VisitScotland should be put into a new network say Liberal Democrats.

According to the Aberdeen Press and Journal, the Liberal Democrats plan for some of Scotland’s biggest quangos to be scrapped and replaced with regional development banks run by business leaders. This would include Visit Scotland the controversial tourist agency.

The Lib Dems said they would replace VS with a new network to stimulate economic growth if the party won the Holyrood election in May.

VS said recently that the earnings from tourism in Scotland have been vastly underestimated so far.

John
Christmas in Glencoe, Scotland

Information about the Glencoe in our Site map
Fort William
Appin is a beautiful area
Bed and breakfast from Oban to Fort William
Walks around our cottage area near Glencoe
Autumn short breaks in cottage
Ben Nevis walking is it worth it
Cottage holidays Scotland off season
The Scottish Highlands
Find holidays anywhere
Wonderful photographs of Glencoe
Hill walks in the area
Munroes in Glencoe
Around Port Appin
Around Barcaldine
Around Lochaber
Around Kentallen
Around Ballachulish
Around Onich

October in Glencoe. Not enough water. Kaykers are strange.

 Gillian and I are here in Glencoe, now, and it is fabulous. The sun is streaming down, well, for to-day anyway, and the colours are in the early days of turning yellow, red, and brown.
We popped down Glen Etive yesterday, to see how the kayakers were getting on. Not all that well, actually, not enough water.
Kayaking is a bit strange when you think about it. When everyone else is gloomy about constant rain the kayakers whoop and head for the falls. They want to go down river, but not far, because they'll have to carry  their canoes on their backs uphill. Ideally they want a road nearby where they launch, then they fall down a few hundreds yards, and they want the road to be there again, preferably with a van on it containing their mother who has done nothing else except sit in it hoping they haven't broken their backs. Mothers are a bit like that.
Odd

It is our day for finding the little things wrong in the cottage, and sorting them out. Got to switch over tv to digital, next week, I think, got to buy a new back door, and get a gate built, light bulb, heater element for bathroom - the really big things. Luckily, Michelle's Dad has done some painting for us, and husband John has fixed the outside light at the back.

Funny thing. If we were living here ourselves these jobs would not get done for months. but because we have guests staying they all have to be done instantly.

The joys of self catering, but we just need to look in the visitors book comments to see it is all worth while.

John

Christmas cottage still availabile in Glencoe, Scotland

Information about Glencoe area in our Site map
Fort William
Appin the beautiful country
Accommodation from Oban to fort William
Walks around the Kentallen cottage
Short breaks in Glencoe
Ben Nevis is a slog, but probably worth it
Holidays Scotland in the Autumn, Winter, Spring
The Highlands
Holiday cottages = how to find them
Photographs of Glencoe
Hill walks Glencoe
Munroes around here
Port Appin is lovely
Barcaldine - two top hotels here
Accommodation
Kentallen the hamlet
Ballachulish looks nice these days
Onich -  pity about the main road there

Walking in Glencoe. Don't bother with the rain. Just do it.

Lovely email from Alistair, thank you A and for permission with the photos. You know, bothering about rain is a townie thing. True visitors don't bother too much about the weather - of course, it can get so awful day after day that you just get fed up. Yes, we've been there too. But look at this story. If you click on the title to this post then you can get Alistair's photos on Flickr, and they are lovely. I honestly do like pics with people in them. 


Hi John,
The weather was wet and wild after the first day, but cleared up towards the end of the week. It is definitely Autumn up there now! We still did plenty of walking and other things though.
While the weather was bad we managed to do the Hidden Valley walk in Glen Coe, the Pap of Glen Coe and then a low level walk up Glen Duror to James of the Glen's house that has now been converted to a bothy. A nice walk with an interesting destination to do on a wet or very windy day as it is nice and sheltered in the trees. On the final day the wind died down a bit and we did Bidean am Bienn which was really good fun.
Also while the wind picked up over the summits we went to the Ice Factor in Kinlochleven to have a go on their high wire and do some ice climbing. The staff there are brilliant, really friendly and offered us 2 for 1 ice climbing lessons after we had gone on their high wire. We drove down Oban to have a look around and do some whisky tasting.
We mostly cooked some cosy meals in for ourselves but had a few nice nights out at the Holly Tree restaurant which served very tasty local food. We also had to go to Fort William for our customary battered haggis and chips supper :-)
Thanks for a great week,
Alistair
Nop, thanks to you and your missus Alistair.


Our new web page needs a link to get Google to see it.


Christmas cottage in Glencoe, Scotland

Masses of information about the area in our Site map
This is about Fort William
Appin is beautiful
B&Bs and hotels from Oban to fort William
Walks around our cottage
Autumn short breaks in glencoe
Ben Nevis walking is a slog, but worth it
Cottage holidays Scotland in the Autumn, Winter, Spring
The highlands of Scotland
Holiday cottages anywhere
Gorgeous photographs of Glencoe
Hill walks in Glencoe
Munroes in Glencoe
Port Appin
Barcaldine
Accommodation in the area
Kentallen
Ballachulish
Onich

At long last...we have a marketing executive at the top of VisitScotland

Guinness Shadow
Originally uploaded by Steffe

From Guiness to VisitScotland - a good move at last by the country's tourist body. Malcom Roughbead, the marketing director has been promoted to Chief Executive.
The organisation has been in turmoil for a few years - there have been petitions to parliament about its website, questions asked about its strategy. Members have left in droves. We never belonged, thank goodness, but we benefit from the advertising operation. In return our one cottage alone produces about £100,000 a year for the Glencoe and Highland economy from visitors.
If you can run Guinness brands world-wide, as Malcolm Roughhead has done then you can run VisitScotland. I know Guiness, and I worked with them at senior level years ago. They have a good marketing operation everywhere around the world.
Already, the first move at VS has been to concentrate a lot of attention on the domestic market for visitors from England and the rest of the UK. Hoorah! That's where the money needs to go. Fish where the fish are, for heaven's sake. More than 80% of our visitors are from the UK, we must, must, must keep them sold.
Well done VS, Congratulations Mr. Roughhead. We don't know each other but since we are both Fellows of the Marketing Society, and of the Institute of Marketing we may well run across each other sometime. Doubt it, though. I can't be bothered to go to their shindigs each year, and I'll bet he doesn't either.
John

Information about the area in our Site map
About Fort William
Appin is gorgeous
B&Bs Oban to Fort William
October short breaks in Glencoe
Cottage holidays off peak Autumn, Winter, Spring
BEst way to find holiday cottages anywhere
Glencoe photographs
Walks around our cottage area in Glencoe
Hill walks in Glencoe
You can walk up Ben Nevis one day?
Munroes around Glencoe
Port Appin
Barcaldine
Accommodation in the area
Kentallen
Ballachulish
Onich
Short breaks in Scotland, Last minute cottage holidays Scotland, Autumn, Winter, Spring
Weather month by month Scotland summer
Weather month by month Scotland Autumn
Weather in Scotland Winter, month by month
Misunderstandings about Scotland's weather
Scotland's rain
Advice on driving in Scotland. Several Scotland driving pages are linked to this.
Honeymoon cottages in Scotland
Scotland for Christmas and New Year
The unofficial Scottish tourist Board
Cottages in Scotland permitting smoking
Cottages in Scotland welcoming pets

To-day Fort William won the Camanachd Cup, for the 4th time in a row

Shaking hands after the game - not true, I made this up
Originally uploaded by ufopilot

To-day Fort William won the Camanachd Cup for the 4th time in a row at Inverness. This is shinty we are talking about - this cup is the tops, the absolute tops in the sport. I'm telling you this, because a key player in the forward line of the Fort William team is John MacDonald, the husband of Michelle, our housekeeper.

John is the nicest, gentlest, softest sort of chap you could meet, unfailingly polite, always helpful. Except on a shinty pitch.

The game of shinty is older than the recorded history of Scotland. Christianity came after shinty and it is reputed that St Columba tried to pacify the players without success so he turned his attention to a lesser target, the Vikings.

Shinty is based roughly on hockey but with a lot of blood added. You can whack the opponents head, er sorry, ball, with either side of the stick. The hockey stick is kept below waist height but in shinty it was found that you can't do enough damage that way so they let you, indeed encourage you, to hit the ball in the air.

To start the game they throw the ball in the air and hit it. If the referee is English they throw him instead.

The game is absolutely splendid to watch, and we are very proud to know John. They have won it four years in a row, and it gets harder every year. Everyone, without exception are after Fort William. They don't win everything in the League, but they do go for this Cup, big time.

Well done, really good result. Could you do it a bit earlier than the last minute another time please lads?

John


Masses of information about Glencoe in our Home page
About Fort William
Hotels and B+Bs from Oban to Fort William
Walks around our Glencoe cottage beside the loch
Autumn short breaks in cottage, £200 off
Ben Nevis walking, a slog, but at least you can say you've done it

Jan Hamilton's pictures around Kentallen are lovely

This is a lovely photograph of our group of 4 terraced cottages at Kentallen. Ours is the 2nd from the right, one of the white ones. It was amongst a group of lovely photographs of the area taken by Jan Hamilton of Duror, our nearby little village. Jan took them for the new website for the Duror community and this link to to the Arts and Crafts page is where she is mentioned with her telephone number.

Thank you Jan for permission to reproduce it, we have put a small version of it on our Home page of the website

John
Cottage holidays Scotland in the Autumn, Winter, Spring
B&Bs and hotels in the West of Scotland
The highlands of Scotland
Holiday cottages anywhere
Gorgeous photographs of Glencoe
Beautiful Appin, Scotland
Walks around our cottage area in Glencoe
Hill walks in Glencoe
You can walk up Ben Nevis one day?
Munroes in Glencoe
Port Appin
Barcaldine
Accommodation in the area
Kentallen
Ballachulish
Onich

Glencoe Mountain ski resort set to go great guns again this Winter

There is no doubt about the enthusiasm and energy of the new Glencoe Mountain team - the ski resort in Glencoe. These are the winter/summer views. It is tremendous fun there.

They have turned themselves into what is called a Commnity Interest Company. This is a normal trading company but it is created for the benefit of the community and not for private advantage. It ends up belonging to the community. It might make it easier to attract financial support to upgrade the facilities. It already has the total support of the community in Glencoe - they keep us all involved as well.

The first move that the CIC has made is to cap the prices of season tickets at the same price as last year. Early bird season pass prices (Those bought before 30th Nov) are £250 for an Adult season pass & £125 for a junior season pass. Discounted season passes for local children are also available at only £75.

Here is a nice touch though. An example of how the community interest works. They have given us, and others, a set of vouchers so that we and our guests can get 20% off the chairlifts when we use the facilities.

That is the CIC working in practice. Good luck to you Andy, and your team. It is going great guns.

John

Holidays Scotland in the Autumn, Winter, Spring
B&Bs the West of Scotland, Oban, fort William, Glencoe
The west highlands of Scotland
Find your holiday cottage anywhere
Wonderful photographs of Glencoe
Appin, West Scotland
Walks in Glencoe
Hill walks in Glencoe
Do Ben Nevis, we dare you
Munroes in Glencoe
Port Appin, West coast
Barcaldine, West Coast
Accommodation in the area
Kentallen West coast
Ballachulish West coast
Onich West coast

£100 off pretty lochside cottage September, £50 off October

We have the last weeks of September available at the moment, and some weeks in October, so we have made price reductions. Email lochsidecottage@yahoo.co.uk   or click on the headline to this post and you will go through to our website. Lovely email from Hilary.
Hi John
We had a lovely time in Scotland, the cottage was great and in such a good position for exploring.  I wrote a detailed account in the feedback book. Thank you for thinking about just about everything - we borrowed a couple of wet weather items but generally the weather was really good - with 3 days full of sunshine , even had to get the suncream out on one day. Jim got bitten by midges but the boys and I remained unscathed.    Highlight of the week was the trip to the isles of Eigg and Muck with Arisaig ferries. We had brief sightings of porpoises and seals but we had a glorious 3 hours on a lovely beach at Muck shared with cows and surrounded by sheep and horses. Wonderful weather as predicted.  We then drove along the coast road to look at the white sandy beaches at Morar and had a fish supper at Mallaig before the drive back to the house. I took a million photos- quite a few of Castle Stalker in different lights.  The scenery was beautiful.  We were lucky to have a couple of baby red deer pop out of the bushes when driving back  from  Appin on one day. Would definitely like to return, lots more to see.  Good to talk with you.
Cheers Hilary

Emails from families like Hilary's keep us going. Thank you.

Cottage breaks in the Autumn, Winter, Spring
West of Scotland hotels and B+Bs
Holiday stories of Scotland
Finding good holiday cottages in Scotland
The best photographs of Glencoe
Appin, achingly beautiful
Walks in Glencoe
Hill walks Glencoe area
Ben Nevis
Munroes in Lochaber

You can get to Staffa and Iona from our cottage in Appin. Ask Nathalie.

Dear John and Gillian. The sun was shining almost every day! It was just fantastic. We even had the sun shining on our boat trip to the Isle of Staffa and Iona. That was my personal highlight of the holiday for we saw both basking sharks and dolphins on our way to Staffa. The island itself is so beautiful and kind of...scary, dont you think? My mother loved the Isle of Iona, especially the white beach. She also fell in love with Oban and our trips to that town were really really fun. We walked very much and visited both Fort William and Inverness and it was really great. Two weeks are way to little time to see everything we wanted to see but we both want to go back as soon as possible.            Nathalie and Beate

Cottage holidays Scotland in the Autumn, Winter, Spring
B&Bs and hotels in the West of Scotland
The highlands of Scotland
Holiday cottages anywhere
Gorgeous photographs of Glencoe
Beautiful Appin, Scotland
Walks around our cottage area in Glencoe
Hill walks in Glencoe
You can walk up Ben Nevis one day?
Munroes in Glencoe

British people. The prime target market for Scotland's tourism

Bit by bit, VisitScotland, the quango which handles tourism for the country, is getting its act together under new management.

They’ve just released some data from market research which shows who visits Scotland on holiday from our own land. Now this is better than the stuff they usually concentrate on, getting Australians back, and attracting Americans.

The old VisitScotland management liked all the junkets in New York too much for my liking. No one said anything about the UK visitors a year ago. Yet the UK accounts for 80% of all the visitors to Scotland.

They have identified several market segments for visitors to Scotland. In the way it has been published it is almost impossible to do anything with the data. Additionally it is four years old!

Anyway, here is a short summary. Warm Affluent southerners, as they call the prime market segment. Mostly professionals, average age 49, they like outdoor activities, and have some kind of relationship with Scotland already, through family or University. They’ve got the most dosh to spend and they use Bed and breakfast and self catering.

Young domestic explorers is the next group, aged 25-45, either couples, singles, or young families. They book at short notice very often. They come from the North of England or Scotland. Rather low on disposable income but high on internet bookings.

Next are the Mature devotees. Often retired, they prefer hotels and Bed and Breakfast and go touring a lot. Usually from the North of England and Scotland, they look for offers but tend not to use the internet.

The 4th group is called Affluent active devotees, those people who are fairly energetic, in their middle years. They like the outdoors, good restaurants, and stay in hotels.

VisitScotland has also identified a couple of what they call “cold” market segments, not so good for Scotland.

These are; Southern travel Junkies, average age 45, who take most of their holidays abroad. They don’t like Scotland too much. The final group is Northern Sometimes. They keep fit, use gyms, are image conscious, not good for Scotland.

Our experience in Bayview cottage.

We have had about 200 families stay with us. All kinds, all shapes, all sizes they’ve been, and all nice bar two. We’ve made some very good friends.

Most of them, 80%, are British, with about of these 20% coming from Scotland, particularly for short breaks off season. Professional people have been very prominent, the biggest concentration of guests. They split into, families with youngsters in their teens, couples, young and middle aged, then families with little ones,

We know what they like to do on holiday, and we know how they find our cottage on the internet. We ask them, they tell us.

They do love the place, even if it rains. But they much prefer it if it is sunnier, obviously. They like the local facilities, the meals out and have no complaints about the amenities. I have not heard one complaint about a restaurant, for example. Well, I did have a couple about an expensive restaurant which closed down.

Our website receives a very large number of visitors each year, one of the biggest in the area. Many are looking for information about Glencoe not necessarily for accommodation.

We have only one cottage to let. So the visitors looking for accommodation are disappointed with us because either we are full up every week except the off peak season, or else they are looking for short term lets, on odd days of the week, and we cannot do that.

Sorry, folks, for late bookings, and short breaks in the peak season you need the big self catering complexes.

Some of these that I know of personally in the area are:
6 cottages above Onich, with wonderful views
A large complex of cottages and chalets on the shore at Onich
Loch Leven Chalets on the shore side
Different cottages owned by the Clachaig

John
Here are some other links
Different holiday cottages around Scotland in the Autumn, Winter, Spring
Bed and breakfast and hotels around our area Lochaber and Lorne
Find Holiday cottages anywhere
Wonderful photographs of Glencoe
Appin one of the glories of Scotland
Walks, 20 of them in Glencoe
Walking hills in Glencoe
Walk Ben Nevis one day?
Munroes mountains in Glencoe