The human touch: Why Scotland should keep its visitor information centres open

Vis­itScot­land’s plan to close its vis­it­or inform­a­tion centres (‘iCentres’) misses the mark, accord­ing to Alastair Naughton who pens his fourth “Good Tour­ism” Insight.

[You too can write a “GT” Insight.]

Vis­itScot­land’s pro­pos­al to close all its iCentres by 2026 is a mis­guided strategy that fails to recog­nise the diverse needs of tourists. 

While it is true that many trav­el­lers plan their trips online, an online-only approach to provid­ing inform­a­tion over­looks sev­er­al cru­cial factors:

‘One size fits all’ never works

There are some areas of Scot­land where clos­ing iCentres most cer­tainly does not work. For example, The Orkney News reveals that no Island Impact Assess­ment was car­ried out in rela­tion to the clos­ure of the Kirk­wall iCentre, as recom­men­ded by the Islands Act. 

Vis­itScot­land’s policy of whole­sale clos­ure is sim­il­arly inap­pro­pri­ate in oth­er remote areas of North­east Scot­land, where loc­al tour­ist inform­a­tion centres are hubs of the com­munity. This broad-brush approach reveals a crass Cent­ral Belt-cent­ri­cism, which, while not being suit­able for any part of Scot­land, will affect the more remote areas par­tic­u­larly badly.

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The digital divide

The jus­ti­fic­a­tion giv­en by Vis­itScot­land towards a so-called ‘Digit­al First Approach’ is that vis­it­ors to Scot­land are simply not access­ing inform­a­tion in the same way as they used to. 

Noone can dis­pute the con­veni­ence of digit­al resources for those who know what they are look­ing for, have clearly defined expect­a­tions, and can com­plete the entire pro­cess from plan­ning to pay­ment from the com­fort of their own home. How­ever, not all vis­it­ors are tech-savvy or have reli­able access to online resources.

iCentres provide a vital ser­vice for those who prefer or need face-to-face assist­ance. Even tech-lit­er­ate vis­it­ors often prefer human contact. 

Read more “Good Tour­ism” posts tagged “des­tin­a­tion mar­ket­ing”

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The value of local knowledge 

There is no sub­sti­tute for the insider inform­a­tion and per­son­al­ised recom­mend­a­tions that loc­al vis­it­or inform­a­tion centre staff can provide. And such recom­mend­a­tions, which in many cases arise from per­son­al exper­i­ence, are so much more effi­ciently obtained from an iCentre than by ask­ing around in a super­mar­ket or in a bar.

Fur­ther­more, com­pared to digit­al con­tent man­agers based in oth­er places, the loc­al staff of an iCentre are more famil­i­ar with the loc­al vis­it­or inform­a­tion in cir­cu­la­tion, and are much bet­ter posi­tioned to receive, veri­fy, and dis­sem­in­ate updates from the des­tin­a­tion’s attrac­tions and ser­vice pro­viders as well as pro­cess dir­ect feed­back from visitors.

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Spontaneity in travel

The digit­al strategy adop­ted by Vis­itScot­land is jus­ti­fied by the claim that vis­it­ors plan in advance ‘for the trip of a life­time,’ and there­fore do not use the iCentres when they arrive. This may have been the case dur­ing COVID. Indeed, the foot­fall dur­ing the pan­dem­ic was dis­astrous. But since then, in many iCentres, num­bers have increased year on year. In 2023, iCentres atten­ded to 1.37 mil­lion visitors. 

It is simply not the case that every vis­it­or plans in advance, let alone for a ‘trip of a life­time’. For example, someone who lives in Aber­deen who decides to go on a spon­tan­eous day trip to ‘the Birth­place of Scot­land’, Arbroath, will likely find it more con­veni­ent to pop into the loc­al iCentre to pick up a list of attrac­tions and events for that day than search­ing for (per­haps out­dated) inform­a­tion online. A well-informed iCentre employ­ee will likely have the most rel­ev­ant informaton for that vis­it­or on that day. 

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The human element

Travel & tour­ism is fun­da­ment­ally about human exper­i­ences. Per­son­al inter­ac­tions at inform­a­tion centres can cre­ate last­ing pos­it­ive impres­sions of Scot­land and its hospitality.

For those in the know, Kirriemuir, a small town off the beaten track in the Angus dis­trict, is best known for being the birth­place of Bon Scott, the former front man of the world-fam­ous rock band AC/DC. After a hellish 10-minute search of the elec­tron­ic super­high­way, I found the life-size statue erec­ted in Bon’s memory. But that was only because I already knew about it and made tar­geted searches for it in the Vis­itScot­land and Vis­it­An­gus web­sites! If only there were an iCentre in town.

Read more “Good Tour­ism” Insights by Alastair Naughton

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Retail values multiple touchpoints

The move to close iCentres mir­rors the shift towards self-ser­vice check­outs in super­mar­kets; a trend that has faced sig­ni­fic­ant back­lash. Hav­ing worked in retail I have exper­i­enced this first-hand. It is unfair on cus­tom­ers, and demor­al­ising for staff who bear the brunt of cus­tom­er frus­tra­tion. The Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment and Vis­itScot­land should take note of this con­sumer behaviour.

Recog­nising the value of mul­tiple touch­points, many retail­ers are now rein­tro­du­cing manned check­outs in response to cus­tom­er pref­er­ences. They’ve recog­nised that while swift self-ser­vice solu­tions are import­ant to some people some­times, they should not be offered exclus­ively at the expense of people-powered ser­vices and those who prefer them.

A suc­cess­ful tour­ism strategy should incor­por­ate both online resources and phys­ic­al inform­a­tion centres to cater to all types of vis­it­ors. In terms of a wel­come, a digit­al menu is no match for the warmth of that first human contact. 

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VisitScotland’s ‘collaboration’ strategy

Vis­itScot­land, led by Lord Thurso, claims to be col­lab­or­at­ing with stake­hold­ers on its new strategy. How­ever, for this strategy to be effect­ive, it must pri­or­it­ise a human-led approach; it must con­sult and col­lab­or­ate with people.

Digit­al resources do indeed play a vital role in mod­ern tour­ism, but they should com­ple­ment rather than replace human inter­ac­tion. Fail­ure to do this could res­ult in a sig­ni­fic­ant decline in the qual­ity of tour­ist exper­i­ences in Scotland. 

It is simply unima­gin­able that the human face of tour­ism should dis­ap­pear from the Scot­tish high street. As a mat­ter of urgency, Vis­itScot­land should recon­sider its plan to close iCentres, and instead focus on integ­rat­ing digit­al, phys­ic­al, and human ser­vices to bet­ter serve our des­tin­a­tions and offer the best pos­sible exper­i­ence to all vis­it­ors to Scotland.

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What do you think? 

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About the author

Alastair Naughton writes for the adven­ture and eco-lux­ury travel sec­tor at Adven­ture Travel Copy, Scot­land.

Featured pic (top of post)

Vis­itScot­land’s plan to close its vis­it­or inform­a­tion centres (‘iCentres’) is a cata­stroph­ic move accord­ing to Alastair Naughton who pens his fourth “Good Tour­ism” Insight. Mys­ter­i­ous stone circles by pexels (CC0) via Pixabay. Flag of Scot­land by jorono (CC0) via Pixabay. “GT” added the words “iCENTRE no more”.

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