Welcome to the Scottish Tourism Forum

Our aim

To contribute to the strengthening of Scottish tourism and add value to member businesses.

What is the Scottish Tourism Forum?

The Forum is an independent trade body comprising trade associations, businesses, marketing and local area tourism groups who earn their living from tourism or have an active interest in tourism.

Our purpose is to support the effort to have tourism recognised as Scotland's foremost sustainable industry and unite tourism interests with effective and independent communication and lobbying.

Our aim is to make a meaningful contribution to the improvement of Scotland's international competitiveness and business performance.

Success in achieving our aims will result in a stronger Scottish tourism product, which in turn adds business and value to members' products.

There are 20,000 tourism businesses in the country, generating £4.2 billion value to Scotland p.a. with plans to increase by 50% by 2015.

Over 215,000 people are employed in the industry, more than 8% of the total workforce.

It is widely recognised that there is still untapped potential in tourism in Scotland and Scottish Tourism Forum will be working alongside Scottish Government to create a landscape for growth.

CURRENT ACTIVITIES

The Forum is currently involved in the following activities:

EET Committee inquiry into the feasibility of 50% growth in Tourism by 2015
Licensing
Climate Change Review
Wind Farms and the impact on Tourism
Training
Looking at strengtheing industry engagement with public sector
Tourism Visitor Levy
TFFC Review

News updates

The Scottish Tourism Inquiry
The long awaited Tourism Inquiry was published on 10 July 2008. Click the link above to view the Forum's initial response. Click here to view the report. STF welcome your feedback, your views shape our policy and will allow us to present a clear message back to the Government. Please email your feedback to Iain Herbert, Chief Executive.
Tourism e-Business Workshops
Scottish Tourism Forum in partnership with Scottish Enterprise and Netdata have worked together on a series of one day workshops designed specifically for people working in the tourism industry. These events have attracted a 98% referral rate and provide real business advantages to the use and promotion of your on line presence.
SCOTTISH TOURISM WEEK 2009 will be held on 2 - 9 March. There are a number of events planned. If you would like SFT to showcase any of your events during STW please get in touch with Elaine Townsend; we will keep you informed of the events calendar as the week starts to build.
STF sets out key priorities for 2008 for the tourism industry in Scotland.
The Scottish Executive have provided Q&As for tourism businesses concerned about the impact of the new licensing regulations.
View or download licensing Q&As.
New Member's badges available for your website. Badges can be downloaded from the member's area of this site.

Visit our events listings