Releasing rural prosperity - 3

Paper presented at 4th annual SCA conference

"Who should run the countryside" Rural Scotland 2006"

Royal Highland Centre, Ingliston, Edinburgh 25th April 2006

Alistair Rutherford

Country Sports Tourism Group

Filed 20 Jun 06
©www.land-care.org.uk

It is essential to understand the importance of the Country Sports industry to Scotland if awareness amongst the decision makers and ultimate progress within the sector is to be gained. Only by so doing can we help to build the future prosperity of our rural communities through the growth of this industry.

Alistair Rutherford
Country Sports Tourism Group

Photo ©Kimpton Graphics

The Scottish country sports industry is a sleeping giant. It has been around for over 250 years, but still the potential for sector growth is vast. Its current contribution to the Scottish economy is at very least a phenomenal £200 million. Although most of it goes unnoticed as it happens outside the public’s main view, it is one of the largest single contributors to the Scottish tourism product.

The importance of that figure became apparent when looking to attract the public agencies to come on board with this project. The figure sparked interest which has lead to great enthusiasm from them for the development of the project. The Scottish Country Sports Tourism Group comprises the following organisations which give it scope and national credibility:

Scottish Enterprise,
VisitScotland,
Highlands and Island Enterprise,
British Association for Shooting and Conservation,
Association for Deer Management Groups,
Scottish Rural Property and Business Association,
Scottish Countryside Alliance Educational Trust,
Scottish Gamekeepers Association, and
Association of Salmon Fishery Boards.

Official commercial value figures are essential to serious discussion about development. The total sector value, as mentioned above, is £200 million. This can be broken down into the contribution that the three main sporting disciplines make:

Angling - £113 million
Shooting - £68 million
Deer stalking - £12 million

It is given that there is no other industry which is so rurally based and has the potential to attract such a high-spend visitor to those remote rural locations.

The following figures indicate the amount of people and visits that are made to the majority of the Scottish regions for country sports activities:

36% to Highland region
26% to South of Scotland
24% to Perthshire, Angus and Fife
18% to North East Scotland
14% to Argyll, Stirling and Trossachs,
9% to Edinburgh and Lothians, Glasgow Clyde Valley,
6% to the Western Isles, Orkney and Shetland.

When looking at the importance and impact of country sports it might be useful to use the angling example for instance. Alone it generates a minimum of £113 million for the economy every year.

But we can see the impact on Scotland’s most rural regions if angling didn’t exist:

£43 million lost in Highland region
£32 million lost in the Northeast region
£8 million lost in the Borders
£7million lost in Dumfries & Galloway.

This refers to angling only and does not include the further impact that both shooting and deer stalking has on those regions. These four rural regions contribute an impressive total of £90 million to Scotland’s tourism, 80% of the total Scottish angling value.

Another key factor is employment. Country sports in Scotland employs significant numbers of people with the majority of those again in highly rural locations. Without this employment structure many of the smaller communities would struggle to survive.

If we take angling as the example again.

Angling alone directly employs 2,800 people largely in rural communities across Scotland and it is suggested that in fact 4,500 jobs would be lost over time that have strong links and reliance on the country sports product.

The following break down shows where these jobs would be lost:

Highland 952 jobs
North East 920 jobs
Dumfries & Galloway 198 jobs;
The Borders 157 jobs.

Out of 2,800 jobs Scotland-wide employed by the angling sector the above four rural regions would account for 2,227 of those.

In total, including the other sporting activities, a staggering £154 million would be lost for the above four regions with an estimated direct job loss of approximately 3,811

I think Country Sports is such an obvious sector to look at developing in Scotland. We have so many advantages over other international destinations such as tradition and recognisable culture in addition to it being a high spend participant activity and the benefits that brings. Perceptions are incredibly stereotyped as to who participates, but country sports is wide ranging and covers a vast array of different types of people with many of the activities being highly affordable to most people.

One can look also at the benefit of country sports in terms of land use. Almost every type of rural land make up has the potential to host a country sports activity. Hill; loch and reservoir; upland moor; woodland; river and waterway; field and farmland; foreshore and estuary and wetland. This shows us why country sports has such a phenomenal potential for further development within land use diversification.

When it comes to marketing I think there is much we can do and learn from other sectors. We are competing with destinations that have developed only within the last 5 to 10 years. They have modern day product delivery and modern day customer service levels, primarily because they have started their businesses within a modern day business climate where these factors are essential to survival. Here in Scotland the culture surrounding country sports has been around for over 250 years and modernising a product of that age is never going to be a simple process. We are going to have to deal with change, and change is always more challenging to instigate than starting afresh. The possible reward at the end of it though is being recognised as the number 1 destination in the world for country sports which we have so much potential to become.

Country sports is often a backbone for rural communities, particularly those in extreme remote locations. There may be no obvious other reasons for people to visit some of these communities and consequently country sports provides the mainstay of income into the area through use of accommodation, places to eat and other local services.

As time progresses and we can see the deserved growth of the industry I hope that this will attract further secondary businesses to locate around these communities leading to the expansion of commercialism in the area and better population retention.

So how are we setting about developing the potential? The projects that the Scottish Country Sports Tourism Group is setting out are as follows:

The first project is called, 'The Scottish Country Sports Providers Database'. A survey is going out to all known providers in Scotland on what they provide commercially. We hope that this will lead to an extensive database which we can use to assist the industry with future development plans. We also want to use it when we come to the marketing and promotional phase of the project to benefit the providers included in it. The project is being piloted initially in the Angus, Dumfries & Galloway and Ross & Cromarty areas. We hope that people will want to return their entries, as it will help give the industry a fundamental tool for its future development.

The second project is looking at how we can increase current business by meeting the demands of the increasing Short Break market. Historically, Scottish country sports providers have focussed on offering ‘week-let’ opportunities, as there has been sufficient demand for all their sport to be let in this way. However, increasing numbers of people are demanding holidays in the 1-4 day bracket and moving away from the week break. So it would seem sensible to increase the opportunities that the industry offers to this growing market. People are also looking more and more for sporting variety in their break and we intend to increase this style of product that is offered.

We are also keen to attract new markets and participants into country sports. We want to be more welcoming, more accessible and to give people who don’t know anything about the activities the opportunity to participate easily. I believe there are thousands of people out there who would love to try some form of sport, whether deer stalking, ferreting, game or sea angling if it was made more accessible.

I mentioned Customer Care earlier and how important it is to today’s country sports product. There is no form of training currently that deals with this in a sporting context. So we are going to develop with some of the sporting and educational leaders in this field both a college module for students studying to become gamekeepers and a stand alone course for keepers, ghillies and deer stalkers already working with estates.

To summarise I would like to say:

“The message is that country sports, in the perception of decision makers and the population at large, is an elitist and exclusive pastime. But in modern day national development there can be no room for perception. Decision makers must know their product and, if their product is the development of Scotland as a nation, then they must know every aspect involved in what is sustaining that product. Other destinations globally embrace their country’s sports on a national basis, and this is why there are fantastic destinations appearing all over the world, delivering top class products. Let us use and develop the immense potential of country sports in Scotland as not only the powerful commercial product that it is but as the founding cornerstone for developing successful and dynamic rural communities across Scotland.”

Thank you.

Acknowledgements and Disclaimer

Land-Care is grateful to Tony Andrews, CEO Scottish Countryside Alliance, and to Dick Playfair of Playfair Walker for the invitation to attend the conference in a media capacity, the opportunity to participate in both formal and informal discussion, and for their help in providing Land-Care with transcripts of the papers presented.

No responsibility for errors or omissions in the transcription process can be taken by SCA, Playfair Walker or Land-Care.

Kimpton Graphics is a division of Land-Care.

Finis

MENU