Tourism in the Outer Hebrides is dominated by small owner-operated business, often on a part-time basis. who can find it a challenge to carve out the time to build and maintain their digital presence among all their other priorities.
Our visitor base is affluent, and accustomed to digital channels, and there is a risk that we were losing customers due to an inability to find out information and make reservations instantaneously. In the past our digital infrastructure had limited the potential for local digital solutions, but major investments in wired and wireless infrastructure is changing this quickly. The Outer Hebrides had one of the lowest levels of online availability in Scotland at around 20%, which meant potential visitors had no choice but to "ring round" providers to track down a property.
Outer Hebrides Tourism was the local partner for this project, leveraging its member network to carry out an audit among businesses of digital usage, attitudes and skills. With this as a baseline, we then worked with the core team to craft a programme that met the needs of our members.
We operated around 6 workshops per year making sure businesses understood the basics of a good website, particulalry imagery, the importance of online booking and the growing role of social media. We brought in providers of booking software to work with our members to create online booking functionality - with minimal effort and outlay.
