David Hope-Jones has unleashed new energy, ambition and optimism in the South of Scotland’s visitor economy by co-developing a single all-agency Responsible Tourism Strategy with unprecedented ambition for the region: increasing the visitor economy by £1 billion and supporting 6,000 more jobs. David’s infectious enthusiasm has made South Scotland louder and prouder than ever before, and for the first time ever, the region won more national Thistle awards than any other part of Scotland, and as many as the region had won for the previous 17 years put together.
Since starting as SSDA CEO, David has been reaching out to, listening to, and representing businesses the length and breadth of the South of Scotland. In his first three months, he met several hundred businesses one-to-one, setting up an interface which allowed anyone that wanted to meet him to schedule digital or in-person meetings directly into his diary. In this way, he quickly learned about the challenges and opportunities of the sector and the region and set a tone of open engagement. Transparency, accountability and delivery are everything to David, with each meeting he chairs having tangible agreed actions which he reports back on in agreed timescales. Every month he records a five-minute video summarising his key activities, so businesses always know what’s happening to support tourism and are invited to be involved.
Having met with hundreds of businesses and community leaders in his first few months as CEO, David published a initial 12-month Operational Plan and set 11 objectives for organisational change with his Board, each with measurable indicators. Within a year he had, as promised, transformed the network into the largest, fastest growing, inclusive and impactful destination marketing and management organisation in Scotland.
A new 250-mile coast-to-coast cycle route, the Kirkpatrick C2C has been launched; Lonely Planet named the South of Scotland ‘Best in Travel 2023’.
Keen to ensure the local voice is not lost, David divided the south of Scotland into 14 areas as part of a Locally Led Destination Development strategy and every six months he meets businesses in each area, giving them influence over how their area is represented. The SSDA achieved its 5-year Covid recovery target of establishing a £750 million visitor economy and supporting a further 6,500 jobs, 2.5 years early.
To build confidence in the region, David negotiated with VisitorScotland for the South of Scotland to create its own regional Thistle Awards (like the Oscars for tourism and hospitality). This was done in 5 months, not the 2-3 years as suggested. It was record-breaking; building pride and ambition and associating the South with quality and prestige.
Aother challenge was the extent of overlap, duplication and competition: each of the public agencies had their own different tourism strategy. David brought every agency to, collectively and collaboratively, develop one singe Responsible Tourism Strategy uniting the public, private and third sector. A further challenge was the entrenched cynicism. He challenged this by listening to businesses, setting tangible objectives, making himself and his team accountable, and delivering real impact. In March 2023, 26% of SSDA members said the network was “extremely/very useful”, just one year later this was 74%.