North website loses nothing in translation

French and Germans will hang on every word in Scottish tourism showcase

Published:

ON LINE: David Hayes and his website in German and French. David Whittaker-Smith

A boost in the number of French and German-speaking tourists heading for Scotland could be on the cards after a Highland entrepreneur set up a £250,000 website in these languages.

The welcometo-scotland.com website is the first UK tourism site to be fully translated into French and German.

Its launch could not have been better timed, with more UK visitors expected to holiday at home and more foreign visitors expected to visit Scotland to take advantage of the weak pound.

The website, which gives visitors all the information they need to plan and book a Scottish holiday, is the brainchild of David Hayes, of the Landmark Forest Adventure Park, Carrbridge, who has previously introduced several pioneering tourism initiatives in Scotland.

Mr Hayes said: “Nowadays, more and more people are researching and booking holidays on the internet, and it’s important to have a tourism site which is user-friendly, informative and rich in content, well-designed, easy and quick to navigate, and the icing on the cake is that the site is written in the visitor’s mother tongue.

“We believe this site will not only attract additional visitors from France and Germany to Scotland but from other French and German-speaking countries such as Austria and Switzerland and the French-speaking part of Canada.”

Praise for the website came from Tourism Minister Jim Mather, who said: “I welcome the launch of this new website, which is a fantastic contribution during the year of Homecoming. Tourism is not immune from the pressures of the global economic situation but our tourism industry is a resilient bunch and they will not let the global economic difficulties distract them from showing the world all that our country has to offer.”

The website is already scoring top rankings for key search terms, and will be the first port of call for French and German-speaking visitors, who spend 4.9million bed-nights and £900million in Scotland each year.

Kenny Taylor, who is a regular contributor to BBC Wildlife, wrote all the wildlife pages, David Whyte has written the golf section, Ally Gowans the angling section, while Gilbert Summers, who wrote the AA Guide to Scotland, has had a lot of input.

Mr Hayes added: “We believe welcometoscotland.com is Scotland’s most comprehensive and useful tourism site. We plan to further enhance it with history and culture sections, and translate it into Italian and Spanish – both substantial markets for Scotland’s tourism industry.”

The website was created in Scotland by the award-winning Edinburgh web design company Line UK at a cost of £250,000.

The French and German domain names are www. bienvenueenecosse.com and www.willkommeninschottland.com respectively.

Mr Hayes set up Landmark, Europe’s first visitor centre in 1970, and later he founded Inveraray Jail, Scotland’s living 19th-century prison. He has also developed Camera Obscura in Edinburgh.