Visit Scotland | Alba
Article published 09/02/2024

Here's our first Orkney Regional Update of 2024. This update highlights some of the ways we’ve promoted the islands across our channels over the last six months, and how we support the industry to keep up to date with news and opportunities. 

We work closely with partners in the region to share news and information about the region nationally and national opportunities locally. This ensures that tourism businesses subscribed to our e-newsletter, connected via LinkedIn and part of our Facebook group, do not miss out. 

In this article:

Scottish and UK Press activity

Our corporate PR team work closely with Scottish and UK media to raise awareness of our work to promote Moray Speyside to visitors and how we offer support for the industry.

Some of the most recent highlights included:

  • We announced the return of our successful travel trade event – Connect – in April 2024 and issued a regional media release encouraging businesses from Orkney to sign up.
     
  • We provided a quote from our Development Manager for Orkney, Cheryl Chapman and information on visitor management following a request quote from The Orcadian.
     
  • We issued a release to local media about the latest part of the Spirt of the Highlands and Islands project - a seasonal marketing campaign highlighting the natural and cultural heritage of the Highlands and Islands, including Orkney, throughout the autumn months.
     
  • In October, Cheryl was interviewed by BBC Radio Orkney about a delegation visiting Orkney to see how cruise works on the islands,
     
  • In November, the Scottish Islands – including Orkney - was chosen as a "Best Place To Go in 2024" by popular US travel media company, Frommer's. Read the full story

Cheryl Chapman opinion editorial 2023

  • We provided Destination Orkney with a quote from Cheryl Chapman for inclusion in their press release about the Orkney Tourism Conference.
     
  • We compiled an opinion editorial from Cheryl Chapman in November, featuring the autumn and winter marketing activity to drive year-round visitors and reflecting on the current climate for tourism. Coverage included an article in The Orcadian. 

Regional Marketing - Spirit of the Highlands and Islands:

  • Multimedia

    Our Multimedia team has created three new autumn videos and a wider suite of multimedia content and imagery to showcase the region’s distinctive heritage and authentic connections with rural communities. Watch them on Spirit of the Highlands and Islands playlist on our YouTube channel.

     

  • Spirit of the Highlands and Islands

    We worked with High Life Highlands on the Spirit of the Highlands and Islands project, which included the creation of a new, immersive website. The autumn landing page immersed readers in community stories, inspirational video and audio content, alongside 10 themed itineraries. Visit the website. 

  • Paid Marketing

    Our £185,000 Autumn 2023 campaign ran from late August until November and included UK and EU digital media (including social media channels such as YouTube), a UK partnership with The Guardian and a EU partnership with Die  Zeit. 

    Campaign results include:

    • UK paid digital media delivered over 17 million impressions and a reach of 5 million. It received more than 60,000 clicks to the campaign page, with a total of 1.4 million video views   
    • The publish partnership with The Guardian generated 62,000 website visits and readers spent approximately 3 mins 47 seconds on the page. This exceeded our forecasts
    • The Dutch campaign delivered 12 million impressions, and a reach of 2 million. It also generated 42,000 clicks and 408,000 video views

    • The German market partnership with Die Zeit achieved 1.5 million ad impressions and 5,800 web visits to the article. Users stayed on the page for an average of 2 min 56 seconds, which also exceeded our forecasting.

  • Influencer Marketing

    On The Road Again Travels visited Orkney in early September to showcase the cultural hidden gems of Orkney and the Isle of Sanday. 

    The content delivered included a blog post, three Instagram Reels (Reel1,Reel2 and Reel3) and a TikTok. 

    This achieved more than 158,300 views in total across Instagram and TikTok, over 5,300 likes and 830 saves. 

Social media stats for the Highlands

1.5 million+

reached through organic Orkney content across all channels

1.65 million+

engagements, likes, comments and shares and saves

446,000+ reached

by top performing Reel featuring a pod of orcas off Orkney's coast

Global Marketing

Scotland’s UNESCO Trail 

Following our dedicated promotion of Scotland's UNESCO Trail, a series of webinars took place over summer/autumn with Scottish Government, designation site representations and the UK UNESCO Commission to present the results of this activity.

We also presented to a meeting of the Nordic UNESCO delegates who were keen to learn more about the development and success of the trail. Our Insights team are continuing work on an economic impact report which will be publishing in 2024. 

Find out more about the campaign

Heart of Neolithic Orkney

 

Global PR

Our Global PR team works to promote Scotland across key media outlets which have been identified through years of work and relationship building. The team can place the right story, at the right time, in-front of the right audience.

Working primarily with media in the travel and lifestyle space, it can take anything from one week to one year, or more, to see the results of the team’s always on activity aligning with our seasonal messaging, organisation priorities and editorial calendars. 

In the period July to September, the team delivered:

  • 11 proactive comms bundles and press releases received in multiple languages by 2,500 media contacts.
  • Releases and communications covering themes including cycling, outdoor adventure, cities, agritourism, responsible travel, festivals, Barbiecore and much more.
  • More than 150 tailored pitches to a range of media titles.
  • 1000 individual engagements with contacts from across the world.
  • Their attendance at in person events. including Destination Britain China, St Andrew’s Day receptions in Paris and Berlin and WTM in London.
  • Hosting for 76 media in various locations across Scotland.

Global PR from Orkney

Example of PR coverage featuring Orkney

Travel Trade activity

An Orkney business took part in our travel trade workshop on 5 December, held in Edinburgh.

This was a new event format created to facilitate engagement between Scottish suppliers and buyers from Destination Management Companies (DMCs).

This allowed Scottish businesses in the early stages of their development to begin familiarising with the requirements of the travel trade, and aid with their business development.

Businesses were selected because of their sustainable product offering and business practices, as well as representing a wide regional spread. This allows us to influence responsible programme development among the DMCs who are selling Scotland tours B2B to tour operators and travel agents around the world.  

Thank you to Shorelands Orkney for joining us!

B2B product presentation to our staff

In October, we hosted our Orkney focused internal product presentation. We had a wonderful session with seven regional businesses who took time to share their business journey with our staff.

Thank you to Alison Moore Jewellery, Skaill Falconry, Stromness Stroll, Shorelands Orkney, Deerness Distillery and Beach Gallery Workshops for joining us.

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