Cairngorms Tour­ism Partnership

Held online on 25 Feb­ru­ary 2026 at 2.00pm

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Present:

• Jack­ie Brier­ton (Chair) — Park Author­ity Board
• Craig Mills — Cairngorms Busi­ness Partnership
• Ross Coulter — Land­mark Park
• Chris Taylor — VisitScotland
• Douglas Chisholm — High­land Coun­cil (from 2.32pm)
• Susan Con­sid­ine — High­land Council
• Gav­in Miles — Park Authority
• Chris Foy — VisitAberdeenshire
• Jess Tomes — RSPB
• Alice Fogg — Vol­un­tary Action Badenoch and Strathspey
• Kar­en John­ston — Park Author­ity (note taker)

Apo­lo­gies:

• Anna Miller — High­lands and Islands Enterprise
• Dani­elle Mckin­lay — Aber­deen­shire Council
• Eilidh Todd — Park Authority
• Geva Black­ett — Park Author­ity Board
• Heath­er Trench — Park Authority
• Olly Dav­ies — Park Authority
• Janet Hunter — GrowBiz
• Steven Dott — High­lands and Islands Enterprise
• Kelly Wilt­shire — Aber­deen­shire Council

1. Wel­come and Apologies

Dis­cussed

• Chair wel­comed every­one and all intro­duced them­selves. Apo­lo­gies were noted.

2. Note of last meet­ing and mat­ters arising

Dis­cussed

• Chair ran through the action points from the last meet­ing which had been actioned where appropriate.
• Chair noted that Norma Lyall, Angus Tour­ism has left to take on a new role, there­fore a new mem­ber will join the group and attend future meet­ings. Chair thanked Norma for all her input, work and efforts in the group and for Angus Tourism.
• Pre­vi­ous meet­ing notes were approved with no amendments.

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3. Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan (NPPP) / Sus­tain­able Tour­ism Action Plan

Dis­cussed

• GM gave an update on the NPPP, not­ing this would go out for full con­sulta­tion later this year. This group will dis­cuss tour­ism at a stra­tegic level in the next Nation­al Park Part­ner­ship Plan at the next meeting.
• Chair noted that they are act­ively look­ing to extend the mem­ber­ship of tour­ism part­ner­ships includ­ing more busi­ness rep­res­ent­at­ives with­in the group. Any sug­ges­tions would be welcome.

Action

• AP(1) — Add NPPP to agenda for June meet­ing. HT

4. Plan­ning for sum­mer sea­son 2026

Dis­cussed

• GM gave an update on Fire Byelaws, not­ing this will come into effect from 01 April 2026. It was high­lighted that there will be pos­it­ive and simple mes­saging shared along with sig­nage, vari­able mes­saging signs, leaf­lets, posters and social media cam­paigns, includ­ing adverts on Spotify.
• GM explained rangers will be trained in the enforce­ment of the fire byelaws, record­ing evid­ence to share with the pro­sec­utor fisc­al. Addi­tion­al sea­son­al rangers have been recruited, spe­cific­ally to work over week­ends and busy peri­ods. There will also be train­ing provided for land man­agers and oth­ers on the ground on hand­ling situations.
• CF asked if the com­mu­nic­a­tions and mes­saging could be shared with the group and loc­al author­it­ies to share via their own chan­nels. GM con­firmed com­mu­nic­a­tions mater­i­als would be shared once the byelaw comes into place to share as far and wide as possible.

5. Winter marketing

Dis­cussed

• GM presen­ted the STEAM 2019 – 2024 data, not­ing that the bulk of growth in vis­it­or num­bers and eco­nom­ic impact was in the quieter off-peak months.
• RC com­men­ted that this mirrored their fig­ures, high­light­ing that Land­mark sold more tick­ets in Decem­ber than in June this year, which is unusu­al, but cred­ited mar­ket­ing of the winter lights, improv­ing sea­son­al tourism.
• CF agreed the data mirrored with their own from Aber­deen­shire, and CT noted that over a two-year peri­od there has been nation­al growth in inter­na­tion­al vis­it­ors and the domest­ic mar­ket trav­el­ing off sea­son which improves num­bers in the shoulder months.
• CM agreed that pro­mo­tion and mar­ket­ing is improv­ing web­site traffic as well as vis­it­ors to the loc­al busi­nesses. It was high­lighted that a Spo­ti­fy cam­paign has been bene­fi­cial with res­ults sit­ting above industry averages.

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• DC joined the meet­ing at 2.32pm
• CM com­men­ted that using hard data to demon­strate to busi­nesses the impact the winter cam­paigns have had will improve busi­ness involve­ment. Dis­cus­sions were had around accom­mod­a­tion busi­nesses being closed over the winter months and the impact of this. It was sug­ges­ted a col­lab­or­at­ive approach from loc­al busi­nesses to stag­ger open days could help improve the tour­ism in the winter months.
• DC sug­ges­ted the bene­fits of look­ing at data from fur­ther back to see the improvements.
• CT to gath­er com­par­ables in oth­er parts of Scot­land to bring back to the group to help with shar­ing the good news story from efforts of the Park Author­ity and Partners.

Action

• AP(2) — Gath­er com­par­able data from oth­er parts of Scot­land and share with Park Author­ity. CT

6. Vis­it­or Levy

Dis­cussed

• DC shared link to High­land Coun­cils Vis­it­or levy con­sulta­tion ana­lys­is and impact assess­ments High­land Coun­cil. High­land Coun­cil are still in the decision-mak­ing pro­cess but lean­ing toward the per­cent­age rates if Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment change the legis­la­tion as expected.
• It was noted that dif­fer­ent coun­cils may choose dif­fer­ent rate options, mean­ing there will be both per­cent­age and flat rates oper­at­ing through­out Scot­land. Some Coun­cils are wait­ing on the res­ults of the bill before mak­ing decisions on what rate to oper­ate under.
• CF con­firmed that Aber­deen City are going ahead with per­cent­age rates, not­ing DM will give a full update at a future meeting.

7. Part­ner Updates

Dis­cussed

• AF updated that Vol­un­tary Action Badenoch and Strath­spey (VABS) are work­ing with com­munit­ies to help them achieve their Com­munity Action Plans through dif­fer­ent deliv­ery mechanisms.
• CT gave an update on their winter cam­paigns work, not­ing once this has been eval­u­ated, the inform­a­tion will be shared to feed into the data for the NPPP.
• CM updated that work was ongo­ing for winter mar­ket­ing and start­ing on sum­mer mar­ket­ing as well as ensur­ing sup­port for busi­nesses on licens­ing issues. CBP is host­ing a cyber-crime con­fer­ence in Aviemore.

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• DC will be attend­ing a meet­ing with the Park Author­ity and New Zea­l­and Tour­ism Board to dis­cuss their motor home scheme.
• JT noted that sea­son­al Rangers will soon be start­ing, enga­ging with pub­lic about respons­ible and respect­able access, work­ing on the ​‘Lek it Be’ cam­paign and work­ing along­side the Park Author­ity Rangers to sup­port them enfor­cing the Fire Byelaw. The Nature Centre opens on 1 April show­cas­ing the chan­ging place facil­it­ies and the elec­tric tramper scoot­er. Help from the Park Author­ity and CBP on pro­mo­tion would be appreciated.
• RC updated on the dif­fi­culty of the increase in busi­ness costs, how­ever noted that their heat source pump has been a massive improve­ment. A new attrac­tion will be launched on 27 June, there­fore work­ing on mar­ket­ing on this. Optim­ist­ic des­pite the challenges.

8. AoB

Dis­cussed

• Noth­ing raised

9. Date of next meetings

Dis­cussed

• Dis­cus­sions were had around the loc­a­tion for the next meet­ing. Land­mark was sug­ges­ted. RC and HT will dis­cuss this.
• Date of next meet­ing is 3 June 2026. CT gave apologies.

Action

• AP(3) — HT AND RC to dis­cuss ven­ue options for next meet­ing. HT

• The meet­ing closed at 3.20pm