Television personality Tony Robinson has called on the Scottish tourism industry to rethink its strategy to avoid the demise of more attractions such as Archaeolink in Aberdeenshire.
The Time Team presenter opened the ill-fated prehistory park at Oyne in 1997, later returning to visit what he described as a “wonderful facility”.
Trustees are making a last-ditch effort to reopen the park, although the doors are expected to remain closed after Aberdeenshire Council withdrew its funding.
Mr Robinson admits that Archaeolink faced an uphill challenge from the beginning, but he believes that the closure may have been avoided had there been more of a national effort by VisitScotland to co-ordinate tourist attractions across Scotland.
“We really need to focus on having people travel through the country, with all the history, the beautiful views, the quirky little towns and villages, and great visitor centres,” he said.
Mr Robinson did give credit to VisitScotland for piloting the Archaeological Treasures Trail in the Western Isles last year, where there was an effort to co-ordinate attractions with hotels and bed and breakfasts to offer a more complete package to visitors. However, he emphasised that the idea needs to be spread throughout the country to boost the tourism industry in Scotland.
On the specific subject of Archaeolink, he expressed hope that the 11th-hour attempts to save the facility would prove successful but described the current climate for attracting investment as “very difficult”.
A VisitScotland spokesman said: “Clearly it is disappointing when any tourism attraction closes its doors, and we hope the park will reopen in the future if and when the funding situation improves. We encourage businesses to work together and last summer’s Archaeological Treasures Trail was a perfect example of this.
“We were delighted that the trail was such a success, encouraging people of all ages to take an interest in archaeology, and we will be doing similar activity in the year ahead.”