VisitAberdeenshire's 2022/23 Annual Review

VisitAberdeenshire publishes annual review demonstrating impact of the organisation to drive visitation, support tourism businesses growth and secure future conferences and business events

• £3.4million visitor spend attributable to VisitAberdeenshire’s owned channels alone.
• Trailblazing Industry Development Programme supported 275 tourism and hospitality businesses in the region including 225 one to one sessions and 28 webinars and workshops, with a focus on sustainability, inclusive tourism and customer and market insights.
• Amplified PR efforts generated national features in Good Housekeeping, Country Living and The Telegraph highlighting quality visitor experiences.

VisitAberdeenshire today published its annual review, demonstrating the tourism organisation’s work to support the sector during the 2022/23 financial year. The review also highlights VisitAberdeenshire’s employee engagement results.

For the first time, VisitAberdeenshire commissioned independent evaluation of the impact of its website, e-newsletter, and social media channels. The result showed that this work alone generated an additional £3.4 million in visitor spend in 2022, in addition to the return on investment from paid-for advertising.

Chris Foy, CEO, VisitAberdeenshire, said: “We use tried and tested evaluation models to demonstrate the outcome of the work we do. Engaged audiences were surveyed as to whether VisitAberdeenshire’s work shifted perceptions and influenced a visit, from this we were able to apply visitor spend metrics to generate an impressive figure.”

Elsewhere, VisitAberdeenshire’s Convention Bureau worked with partners including P&J Live, to successfully win large scale conferences worth £3.5million, equating to nearly 10,000 bed nights.

Mr Foy said: “By working in collaboration with venue partners, our universities and academics, Aberdeen Convention Bureau demonstrated the calibre of the city as a conference destination, securing a pipeline of business benefiting Aberdeen and beyond.”

VisitAberdeenshire’s Industry Development Programme supports tourism businesses to develop skills to scale up and meet consumer demand including development of bookable products to sell into the travel trade supply chain.

Ramped up marketing and communications activity delivered vibrant promotional campaigns and landed high profile coverage in Good Housekeeping and Country Living magazines, and in national newspapers including The Guardian and The Telegraph.

Mr Foy continued: “VisitAberdeenshire’s team of experts has encouraged local businesses to make changes to stimulate growth, worked with travel intermediaries to sell Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire to tour operators and secured national press coverage in travel and lifestyle titles. But we will not stand still.
“Our vision is to be the leading destination organisation in Scotland, increasingly recognised for growing the visitor economy through bold and dynamic initiatives. We look forward to another fruitful year supported by our talented team of industry experts.”

VisitAberdeenshire is funded by Opportunity North East, Aberdeenshire Council and Aberdeen City Council.