Traveltech for Scotland — Weeknote 1 (Our first 3 weeks)
Launching and Listening
Traveltech for Scotland officially became a thing on 18 August 2020.
We have received a huge amount of interest, backing, and media exposure, with notable coverage from the BBC, STV and Skift. A great start.
This is the first of many weeknote blogs we’ll share with you. Each week we will be putting our ethos of transparency and openness into action, keeping you updated about our thoughts, ideas, activities, efforts, and projects. For our first weeknote, we’re covering the first three weeks since our launch. In future they’ll be a little shorter.
What have we done in the last three weeks?
We had our launch event with over 60 attendees and we heard from Julie Grieve of Criton, Allan Nelson of For-Sight, and Iain McNeill of Whereverly.
In 3 weeks, we have responded to every meeting request we’ve received, having over 40 conversations with traveltech companies, tech companies, tourism businesses, interested academics, associations, and international companies — all with an interest in travel and technology. We’ve now spoken to over one hundred more through events with the Scottish Tourism Alliance, ScotlandIS, The Association of Scottish Visitor Attractions (ASVA), Censis, and Interface and other.
Our first projects are in the works, and we are planning for our first events (you’ll hear more about these soon!)
We’ve started as we mean to go on, listening to and learning from the traveltech and tourism communities. Hearing about the immediate challenges, issues, and needs and what we can do to help.
What have we learnt?
It is the right time. The publication of the Mark Logan report (Scottish technology ecosystem: review) only a week after our launch, echoes the ethos and principles of Traveltech for Scotland. In it, Mark emphasises the need for technology to be at the heart of Scotland’s economic recovery, and the necessity for a community which nurtures and supports this. This, in combination with our conversations, has reaffirmed the importance of this endeavour.
Scotland is already a traveltech hub, we just haven’t recognised it yet. It’s not just Skyscanner. Our current list of companies is getting towards one-hundred. Scotland is host to both established successful companies (Bookster, Traveltek, Hotelfone, Freetobook), relative newbies (Pour, Hollibob), and those just starting out (Tourable Technologies, Unbaggaged).
The breadth within traveltech is huge, ranging from facilitating disabled access to venues (Neatebox Welcome), designing apps to train front of house staff in the art of wine (Quenchable), motorbike-friendly accommodation finder (Bikerbnb) and trip planning and booking for golf tours (Zest Golf).
We need to think international. The challenges emerging from our conversations with the sector are global. These remind us that the solutions we develop are widely necessary and applicable.
Common challenges are emerging. The pandemic has affected traveltech companies in different ways. Some are thriving and have urgent needs to recruit software developers and engineers. Others are having to reorient their business totally towards new markets. Funding is a priority and most companies are looking at bids for innovation funding. There is a lot of interest in the potential of data and AI.
What’s coming up?
Over these last three weeks we have become more and more sure about the vital need for a traveltech cluster in Scotland. We recognize the scale of the challenges facing the tourism and traveltech sector. Next, our priority is to focus on action that meet the needs and wants of the traveltech community and the tourism sector as a whole.
Traveltech for Scotland is now in full swing and we have some new developments coming. This includes a community platform to serve as a communal space for our members. We have some action-orientated events coming up in the coming weeks. We are also collaborating with the developers of the digitisation of tourism toolkit to turn it into an online traveltech directory.
Finally, we have many people to thank for their support and guidance along the way (the list is by no means exhaustive!) including:
- Our colleagues at Edinburgh Futures Institute and Edinburgh Innovation
- Marc Crothall and the team at the Scottish Tourism Alliance
- Malcolm Roughead, Vicki Miller and the team at Visit Scotland
- Stephen Ingledew at FinTech Scotland
- Jane Morrison-Ross and the team at ScotlandIS
- Russell Dalgleish at the Scottish Business Network
- Gillian Docherty at The Data Lab
- Aileen Lamb, Kim Robertson and Rachel Meehan at Scottish Enterprise
- Gordon Morrison and Helen Henderson, ASVA
- Julie Grieve of Criton, Allan Nelson of For-Sight and Iain McNeill of Whereverly
- Siobhan Jordan and the team at Interface
- And many more
- Thank you also to Joshua Ryan-Saha and Anne Van Der Poel for creating our very first weeknotes!
To stay updated on our progress, the launch of our community platform and future events, sign up for our mailing list. Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.
