Demonstration adaptation project : Stay & Play - selling alternative activities to the winter sports market

Location: Cairngorms National Park, Scotland

The project will use technology to aid last-minute cross-selling of a variety of tourism products when winter sports are not available at Cairngorm Mountain due to lack of snow or poor weather conditions. 

The tourism industry in the Badenoch & Strathspey region of the Cairngorms National Park makes up an estimated 80% of the local economy, attracting 1.16 million visitors and contributing over £137million in 2007.  A local skiing industry means that tourist numbers are less seasonal than many other rural areas of Scotland.  However, a series of unreliable winters in terms of snow cover and weather conditions, together with increased availability of low-cost flights to other destinations, threatens the local winter tourist economy.

Each winter there are an average of 20 days when Cairngorm Mountain ski centre is unable to run uplift, either due to lack of snow or often due to high winds and stormy conditions.  Additionally there are days where limited snow cover means ticket sales must be limited.  On these days, inevitably there are disappointed customers, many of whom have travelled a significant distance to ski or snowboard.  These visitors have money in their pockets (a day ticket in 2007/08 was £28) and currently the majority of them make their way home disappointed.

This project will use Bluetooth technology to get up-to-date information on alternative visitor activities and other tourism offers to visitors at key points - at Cairngorm Mountain itself, at Rothiemurchus Estate where electronic signage updates on ski lift status, and at the Tourist Information Centre (TIC) in the village of Aviemore. 

Local activity providers, retailers, attractions and other tourism dependent businesses, will be encouraged to have a flexible ‘bank’ of special offers that can be rolled out at short notice and promoted to frustrated snowsports visitors via Bluetooth to their mobile phone handsets.

This main aims of the project are to:

a)      Bolster the local economy by encouraging visitors to remain in the area and spend money even when their chosen activity is not available.

b)      Mitigate against visitor disappointment and resentment by offering alternative activities.

In terms of timescale, it is hoped that a pilot project will be up and running by February 2009.  The project can then be tweaked for a wider roll-out in winter 2009/10.  Much of the investment will be in developing the necessary software for the system and undertaking initial publicity to promote the scheme to businesses and to visitors, so the system could run in perpetuity with a small amount of advertising revenue from the tourism businesses using the system. 

The system could also have a number of other uses throughout the year.  For example, accommodation providers could use it to display availability during the peak season, so visitors arriving after the TIC had closed could still access information.

Initially the demonstration project would focus on Cairngorm Mountain and the Aviemore area, as it has a high proportion of activity providers and a visitor demographic who are likely to be comfortable with the technology.  However there would be an opportunity to roll it out to the rest of the Cairngorms National Park at a later stage.