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Visit Scotland | Alba

Help visitors enjoy Scotland responsibly

We want everyone to have a fantastic experience in Scotland. To achieve this, both locals and visitors alike, must respect and protect our surroundings. Whether that be within our communities or in the great outdoors.

Working with businesses, destinations, and communities we can develop a sustainable destination – together.

Expedia research shows that 7 in 10 consumers feel overwhelmed when trying to be a sustainable traveller. With 90% looking for sustainable booking options, it’s more important than ever that we make it as easy as possible for them.

What is sustainable or responsible tourism?

Sustainable tourism is holidaying in an eco, green and environmentally friendly way. Responsible tourism is considering the wider impact a trip could have on Scotland, and the world.

A visitor choosing to experience Scotland responsibly can help:

  • protect our landscape

  • boost our local economy

  • prove the well-being of visitors and our communities

View and share our dedicated page on visitscotland.com

Scotland's responsible tourism promise

We’re asking visitors to show their commitment to preserving Scotland’s natural assets and beauty. Both for now and generations to come. The responsible tourism promise asks visitors to make a few simple "promises" on how they’ll enjoy Scotland, responsibly.

We invite everyone to help encourage responsible and safe tourism in Scotland.

Visitors are asked to commit to their promise and share it with others. They can use #RespectProtectEnjoy on X (Twitter) and encourage friends and family to do the same and get involved.

Take me to the responsible tourism promise on visitscotland.com

How to get involved in sustainable and responsible tourism

We need you to help encourage visitors to plan and enjoy a responsible trip in Scotland. Spread the message and share content that helps your visitors to make responsible choices. The more we talk about it, the more people will hear about it.

Use this messaging in your activity:

  • go off the beaten track but leave no trace
  • beat the crowds and travel out of season
  • use low carbon transport options
  • follow our responsible travel itineraries
  • stay longer and really explore our landscapes, nature and culture
  • shop local, eat local and meet the locals
  • respect, protect and enjoy your Scotland experience

Visitors responsibly enjoy the Scottish countryside with their dogs.

Share content from visitscotland.com

Our consumer website, visitscotland.com, has a range of ideas to support your business and inspire potential visitors.

Find everything from how a visitor can plan and enjoy a responsible trip, to outdoor access guidelines and responsible travel. All available for you to share.

Our page on visitscotland.com covers

  • How to choose a destination

    Encourage visitors to consider travelling off-season in the quieter spring, autumn and winter months.  And showcase our hidden gems – perfect any time of the year.

  • How to travel around

    Transport has a big impact on how sustainable visitors are. Take a look at the information we have on the different travel options for your visitors.

  • How to stay longer

    Inspire visitors to stay longer by showcasing the many amazing experiences available to them. There’s too much to do in just a couple of days.

  • How to help local communities

    Our visitors can help give back to local communities by shopping and supporting local. Promote what your business does and the experiences that can be found on your doorstep.

Images and videos to share

The easiest way for you to get involved is to share imagery and video content that can enhance your social and marketing material.

Good, strong images and video will influence someone’s decisions, expectations, and emotions. This is even before they even set foot at the location.

We can help by giving you access to a range of pictures of Scotland and campaign resources such as videos and infographics. You can download and use them free of charge.

Online video is currently the number one driver for the best engagement and results. People now watch more video than ever before. Using video in your marketing is a great way to reach and talk to your customers.

Take a look at our responsible tourism collection within our digital toolkit. Simply register for free, login and search "responsible tourism" to access the assets.

Get free images, video and campaign material from our digital toolkit.

1. Responsible motorhome, caravan, and camping trips

We have two films that provide a guide to responsible motor homing in Scotland and caravan and camping trips. Both encourage everyone to enjoy Scotland’s countryside and communities responsibly.

2. Step forward and tread lightly. Scotland is Calling

Our Tread Lightly film encourages visitors to leave no trace. We ask that visitors play their part to #RespectProtectEnjoy Scotland and choose a path that treads lightly on Scotland. Protecting our natural assets.

3. Let's keep Scotland special

Another film that you may find hits the right spot is "let’s keep Scotland special". It encourages those that live in and visit Scotland to make the most of our outdoors, but to take responsibility for caring for it.

4. Keep Scotland Unspoiled

Our Keep Scotland Unspoiled campaign used humour to call out the “bad behaviours” we don’t want to see. It showcased the “spoilers” behind the scenes. The aim was to inspire more responsible visitor behaviours, particularly across younger demographics. We have four films available to share with your visitors.

How to use social media for messaging

On your social channels, share messages of support, compassion, and community spirit. Consider what might resonate best with your audience.

Use #RespectProtectEnjoy across your social media activity. Remember to use #VisitScotland to make your posts more discoverable and add our handle @VisitScotland to your tweets for us to see them.

Make sure you follow our channels so that you can share our content directly or tag us in a post that you put up:

Consumer

Corporate

X (Twitter): @VisitScotland

X (Twitter): @VisitScotNews

Facebook: @visitscotland

Facebook: regional groups

Instagram: @visitscotland

LinkedIn: @VisitScotland

YouTube: Youtube.com/VisitScotland

YouTube: VisitScotland Connect

Our partnership approach

Responsible tourism is threaded through all our marketing activity. We liaise regularly with our partners to ensure we're sharing the right messages, with the right audiences, at the right time.

We partnered with social media influencers The Hebridean Baker and On the Road Again Travels to produce inspirational content. This allowed us to reach a wider audience across social media and TikTok.

The use of influencers enables authentic messaging to reach new audiences. Our plan is to work with an even wider pull of influencers providing films that cover our key messages, in an engaging way. 

We joined organisations across Scotland to develop a Scotland-wide coordinated approach to Visitor Management. We want to inspire and educate "novice" outdoor adventurers and visitors in how to enjoy the outdoors responsibly. We'll do this across marketing, media and social media.

Our collective ambition is for everyone to have the skills and knowledge to be able to enjoy the outdoors responsibly. This will in turn, enable them to aid the recovery of our rural economy.

Read about our Scotland-wide visitor management partner approach

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