The Next Big Thing
Just finished reading a good and rather different book – the Next Big Thing by Mike Russell. Described as a fable of modern Scotland, it tells the story of what happens when the Scottish establishment go looking for a big idea to invigorate Scottish tourism and is loosely based on the (true) story of John Lennon’s childhood holidays in the far northwest – Durness near Cape Wrath. There are quite a few clearly recognisable characters – the author has been an SNP politician for many years - but some pretty sound reflections on tourism today.
There is no doubt in my mind that Scottish tourism has incredible¬† - and still unrealised¬† - potential. The danger of always looking for the next Big Idea is that in fact most ideas are small to start with. Some of the best businesses we work with have grown by gradually improving and developing great but small ideas. What they have in common is that they have not stood still. Very few of them have had any meaningful support from the state ‚Äì whose focus is always on the Big numbers. I guess that‚Äôs only to be expected, after all a business founded on grants and subsidies risks being dependent on them and there are plenty of examples from “big business ideas”, that when the grants run out so the business closes or moves on to the next country.
The SNP are now our (minority) government and one of their highlight policies was doing away with the Scottish Tourist Board- Visit Scotland and coming it with the business development organisations- Scottish  Enterprise et al. To be frank not a policy I agreed with- so lets see what comes out. In the meantime those of us who have chosen to make a living from Scotland as a tourist destination will keep focussed improving our own businesses, what ever politicians and state agencies throw at us. And yes, there is still the hope that we can find the next big thing.
Robert Kidd is a founding director with his wife