Scotland as a tourism destination can never stand still. Tourists have changing expectations and other destinations are investing in destination marketing. We can now take a holiday in the North Pole or South Pole and every where in between. Afghanistan even has a tourism offering of the ‘last unconquered mountains of the world’.

Against a background of rising oil prices, terrorism and falling consumer confidence, trying to find out what Scottish tourism will look like in the future is not an easy task.

Leading tourism organisations and business have joined together through The 2025 Scenario Planning Group.

Members of the group include:

The remit of the 2025 group is to answer a number of questions that relate to future markets, products, consumer needs and supply side issues.

These questions include:

• Which markets will thrive or decline to 2025?
• Which product offers will thrive or decline by 2025?
• How will customer needs, wants and expectations change to 2025?
• How will the supply-side and structural issues assist or hinder the development of Scottish tourism to 2025?
• How do we work together to achieve the industry ambition for tourism to grown tourism by 50 per cent by the year 2015?

The group is supported by the Future Foundation (a leading Consumer Think Tank) and the scenario planning team at VisitScotland.

Ambitions for Scottish Tourism – The Road Map to 2025
The first task of the group in 2004/5 was to construct a road map of the future which includes two scenarios for 2015 and two scenarios for 2025. more