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Cairngorms Tourism Partnership meeting minutes - November 2025

Cairngorms Nation­al Park Author­ity Ùgh­dar­ras Pàirc Nàiseanta a’ Mhon­aidh Ruaidh

Cairngorms Tour­ism Partnership

Held online on 5th Novem­ber 2025

Present:

  • Jack­ie Brier­ton (Chair) — Park Author­ity Board
  • Craig Mills — Cairngorms Busi­ness Partnership
  • Janet Hunter — GrowBiz
  • Ross Coulter — Land­mark Park
  • Chris Taylor — VisitScotland
  • Geva Black­ett — Park Author­ity Board
  • Douglas Chisholm — High­land Council
  • Norma Lyall — Angus Tourism
  • Dani­elle Mckin­lay — Aber­deen­shire Council
  • Steven Dott — High­lands & Islands Enterprise
  • Kelly Wilt­shire — Aber­deen­shire Council
  • Susan Con­sid­ine — High­land Council
  • Gav­in Miles, Heath­er Trench, Olly Dav­ies, Eilidh Todd — Park Authority

Apo­lo­gies:

  • Chris Foy — VisitAberdeenshire
  • Anna Miller — High­lands & Islands Enterprise
  • Jess Tomes — RSPB
  • Alice Fogg — Vol­un­tary Action Badenoch & Strathspey

1. Wel­come & Apologies

Dis­cussed

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

    Action

2. Note of last meet­ing & mat­ters arising

Dis­cussed

  • Heath­er ran through the action points from the last meet­ing which had been actioned where appro­pri­ate. One action will roll for­ward as it was for early 2026:
    • AP1) HT to con­vene small work­ing group in 2026 to con­sider next wave of sur­vey ques­tions.

      Action

      HT

3. Sus­tain­able Tour­ism Action Plan — Mid-term review

Dis­cussed

  • HT led dis­cus­sion on the actions with­in the action plan, gath­er­ing updates on deliv­ery, but also con­sid­er­ing where there may be appro­pri­ate to make changes to the actions where pri­or­it­ies had changed.
  • A few minor changes to the actions were sug­ges­ted and agreed, and these will be incor­por­ated into an updated doc­u­ment, along with inform­a­tion about deliv­ery over the last year.
  • AP2) All to email HT with any deliv­ery updates for inclu­sion in the doc­u­ment by end Decem­ber 2025.

    Action

    HT

4. Mar­ket­ing

Dis­cussed

  • CM gave an update on the 2025 – 26 ​‘Where Winter Comes to Life’ cam­paign. This will build on the pre­vi­ous PR-driv­en cam­paign with a blend of PR and mar­ket­ing, includ­ing an audio cam­paign on Spotify.
  • The PR cam­paign will tar­get fam­ily titles, but also expand to a more adven­tur­ous mar­ket, pro­mot­ing a range of activ­it­ies that aren’t depend­ant on par­tic­u­lar weath­er or snow conditions.
  • Vis­it­Ab­er­deen­shire were not in attend­ance but CM con­firmed that they are liais­ing on their respect­ive cam­paigns.

    Action

5. Vis­it­or Levy

Dis­cussed

  • High­land Coun­cil shared a recent update report that had gone to Coun­cil on 30th Octo­ber. Extern­al con­sult­ants are work­ing on a range of evid­ence reports includ­ing an Eco­nom­ic Impact Assess­ment, Con­sulta­tion Ana­lys­is and Levy Rev­en­ue Fore­cast. These will inform anoth­er report for Coun­cil in Decem­ber which will set out future recommendations.
  • Aber­deen­shire Coun­cil car­ried out an inform­al stage of early con­sulta­tion in sum­mer 2025 which will inform a full coun­cil report in early 2026.
  • HT flagged that Perth & Kinross Coun­cil had also recently com­pleted an early inform­al consultation.
  • CT shared a link to updated guid­ance and a list of schemes that had been agreed, pro­posed or con­sidered. Vis­it­or Levy Guid­ance for Loc­al Author­it­ies | Vis​itScot​land​.org

    Action

6. End of Sea­son update

Dis­cussed

  • CS gave a short present­a­tion that cap­tured some of the key work that had taken place with a range of part­ners across the sum­mer sea­son to address issues includ­ing con­ges­tion, inform­al camp­ing, motorhomes, fires and wild­life disturbance.
  • Com­pared with pre­vi­ous years there were few­er issues recor­ded. Park Author­ity rangers had 5983 ​‘engage­ments’ with mem­bers of the pub­lic, of which only 30 were recor­ded as negative.
  • There was a dis­cus­sion on the upcom­ing fire byelaw legis­la­tion and it was noted that there was dis­cus­sion about sim­il­ar legis­la­tion in both Moray and Aber­deen­shire, as well as at a nation­al level. There was also dis­cus­sion about busi­ness and landown­er exemp­tions to the byelaws and the pos­sib­il­ity of con­fu­sion. The Park Author­ity have con­trac­ted extern­al con­sult­ants to help devel­op con­sist­ent and clear messaging.
  • NL asked about ranger ser­vice pro­vi­sion in the Angus Glens and CS con­firmed that a full-time Park Author­ity ranger will be employed to cov­er the area of the Angus Glens, reach­ing into Perth­shire around Glen­shee, from early 2026, sup­ple­men­ted by sea­son­al rangers.

    Action

7. Part­ner Updates

Dis­cussed

  • HIE have a range of busi­ness fund­ing avail­able, but SD drew atten­tion to the Digit­al Tour­ism Sup­port Pro­gramme which will come to an end from 15th December.
  • The Cairngorms Busi­ness Part­ner­ship con­fer­ence will take place next Wed­nes­day 12th Novem­ber, with 130 del­eg­ates cur­rently booked.
  • RC issued an invit­a­tion to group mem­bers to vis­it Land­mark to exper­i­ence the Twi­LIGHTS winter product.

    Action

8. AoB

Dis­cussed

  • Noth­ing raised

    Action

9. Date of next meetings

Dis­cussed

  • The plan for 2026 will be again to have three meet­ings, with online meet­ings in Spring and Autumn, and an in-per­son meet­ing and vis­it in June. It was sug­ges­ted that we invest­ig­ate the logist­ics of a vis­it to the South of the Park, and CS sug­ges­ted involving the ranger ser­vice in the day to give an insight into the work they carry out on the ground.
  • AP3) HT to con­firm dates and arrange­ments for 2026 meet­ings.

    Action

    HT