Scotland

Nine Dumfries & Galloway Businesses take part in Spot-lit Programme

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Wigtown Festival Company is excited to announce the nine Dumfries & Galloway businesses that will be taking part in our Spot-lit Literary Tourism Product Innovation Programme. The programme, starting this month, will run for a year and will support each of these local businesses to develop new literary tourism products, engaging with the region’s many literary assets from Robert Burns in Dumfries to Dorothy L Sayers in Gatehouse of Fleet. The programme includes financial investment as well as business mentoring for each of the participating businesses. Find out more about them below:

Galloway Cycling Holidays

Galloway Cycling Holidays, as the name suggests, run bicycle holidays in Dumfries & Galloway. Thornhill in the Nith Valley is one of the hubs for their guests and a wonderful place for them to stay and do stunning day-long rides. They come from all over the world, and on their first ride they visit the grave of Kirkpatrick Macmillan. There at the bottom of a long list of births and deaths of family members and some time obscured by long grass are the words ‘Kirkpatrick Macmillan, inventor of the bicycle’. Why isn’t he on our bank notes? Well, Galloway Cycling Holidays want to do something about that.

A recent book by a local author – Jamesie Burns and the Bicycle Thieves, by Ian Barr – begins the adventure and Galloway Cycling Holidays want to help more people discover their unsung local hero. A website and a self-guiding trail are planned, starting at Drumlanrig Castle. Links to Dumfries and Kirkcudbright and the landscapes of Burns, Barrie, Crockett and Buchan will feed into the Kirkpatrick loop.

The Bookshop Band

The Bookshop Band is a musical duo, formed ten years ago as a creative collaboration with an award-winning independent bookshop called Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights. They write songs inspired by books and have toured extensively across bookshops in the UK, Europe and North America, and have released thirteen studio albums. Ben and Beth moved to Dumfries and Galloway in 2017.

Their project is to write and record an album of songs inspired by children’s literature in Scotland, both classic and contemporary, including the famous story of Peter Pan, which has direct links to Dumfries and Moat Brae. The album will be produced in a way that may be adapted for performance and also as a self-run educational and fun activity for children’s groups.

It is hoped that Moat Brae and other key literary institutions will help with the curation of the album and that the songs will provide a framework for new family-friendly activities that could be offered by Moat Brae to their visitors.

Ellisland Farm

Ellisland Farm is the home that Robert Burns built for himself and his family beside the River Nith. Ellisland will work as lead partner with Dumfries Museums at Robert Burns House and the Robert Burns Centre, along with the Globe Inn, Burns’s favourite howff, to develop a coordinated narrative which directs visitors to discover the full ‘Burns in Dumfries’ story.

The project is called ‘In the Footsteps of the Bard’ and will bring together heritage partners to help tell the Dumfriesshire story of Robert Burns. There will be a focus on diversifying audiences, particularly engaging with young people and families. This will be achieved digitally by creating new resources to help visitors understand what the various sites have to offer and will allow them to develop their own flexible interactive itineraries.

On site at Ellisland, there will be consistently branded interpretation to signpost visitors to Burns related places of interest and a suite of memorabilia packs to buy, which will help people make the most of their visit and will include a comic/sticker book for young people to guides them around the venues.

Craigmount Bed and Breakfast

Craigmount is owned by Malcolm and Nicole Court, who discovered and fell in love with Wigtown a few years ago while on their frequent travels to Scotland. Their dreams finally became a reality in August 2018 when they bought and reopened Craigmount as a bed and breakfast.

Malcolm and Nicole would like to create literary-themed accommodation at Craigmount. All rooms and public areas will be based on local literary figures. They are also keen to hold themed evenings and literary tours of the area. They hope that their ideas will help attract literary tourists to enjoy Scotland’s National Book Town all year round and not just during the annual book festival.

Mostly Ghostly Tours

Mostly Ghostly Tours is run by a team of history enthusiasts and paranormal researchers and they are the award-winning creators of a range of ghost and local history tours across Dumfries and Galloway. United by a passion for history, storytelling and the supernatural, Mostly Ghostly was established in 2008, launching its flagship walking tour ‘The Dumfries Ghost Walk’ in 2010. Its unique range now includes everything from castles and churchyards to a tour of Scotland’s oldest working theatre. In 2019, they founded and launched the inaugural Festival of Folklore.

Through Spot-lit, Mostly Ghostly will be offering an exciting new venture – ‘Croc in the Frock’ tours – a fabulous feast of ghosts, history, adventure and folklore named after the famous crocodile in Peter Pan. This interactive, family-friendly experience aims to promote literary tourism in Dumfries and Galloway by weaving together elements of Dumfries’s rich tapestry of literary connections. These intriguing elements will take the shape of two town-based walking tours, led by the fabulous Croc and her two pirate minions!

Mostly Ghostly is keen to collaborate with Moat Brae, Dumfries Museum, the monthly Dumfries Market Festival and other local partners.

Dark Sky Pages

Dark Sky Pages is a home-based small business in Wigtown, run by Gillian Hamnett. Gillian provides commercial and editorial services to the literature sector on a freelance basis. She supports bookshops, writers, publishers and literary festivals and her services include bookselling, consulting, proofreading and copy-editing. She also runs a book group, and in time expects to offer bookseller training and a micro writing retreat, all of which will accompany ‘Stellar Words’, a new Spot-lit funded annual event.

Stellar Words will be an annual publishers’ fair held in Wigtown, Scotland’s National Book Town. Petite presses, large independent publishers, pamphlets, periodicals, journals, zines and book ephemera will all be showcased during an informal sales fair. This will start as a one-day commercial event open to the public and grow into a weekend-long feature of the Scottish and UK literary calendar, with a light programme of activities connected to writing, publishing and bookselling.

The Mill on the Fleet

The Mill on the Fleet is a visitor centre in a restored 18th-century cotton mill. It hosts an annual programme of temporary exhibitions on two floors as well as core displays on the history and heritage of Gatehouse of Fleet and the Fleet Valley. The Gatehouse tourist information centre is based in the Mill, and the Mill also has a large shop showcasing regional arts and crafts, a large second-hand bookshop, and a café with a riverside terrace. The Mill hosts live music events, talks and festivals throughout the season.

The Mill on the Fleet project will use a range of tools to engage visitors with the literary heritage of the area. Packages will be provided for a range of different needs from fairly simple self-guided tours supported by printed trail leaflets to more immersive experiences provided by guides/specialists through booked packages.

The authors initially selected are Dorothy L. Sayers, who wrote Five Red Herrings while staying at the Anwoth Hotel in Gatehouse of Fleet; John Buchan and The Thirty-Nine Steps; S.R. Crockett and his Galloway tales; and Sir Walter Scott. The project will work closely with local accommodation providers and other partners to both market and to involve them in the provision of some of the packages, which will use local specialists to provide, for example, guided walks, tours of locations, special interest areas such as painting, the artistic heritage, historical context, flora and fauna, or local geography as reflected in the stories and their inspiration. The project is very modular and lends itself to trialling initial packages and adding new ones as they are developed.

Webber’s Wildlife Services

Webber’s Wildlife Services is a reflection of owner Martin Webber’s hobbies, interests and career. Martin is a professional countryman and has spent most of his working life employed in gamekeeping, wildlife management and conservation. Martin now offers rustic experiences to those who have an interest but perhaps know little or nothing about country life and the kinds of earthy, hedgerow crafts that are second nature to him.

In Martin’s formative years, he relied on whatever books or articles he could find on field sports, and prominent amongst the authors was Ian Niall. Ian was a prolific writer on shooting, gamekeeping and fishing. At the same time, through his writing, he managed to capture forever a form of rural life which has, mostly, disappeared. Martin will be inviting people to accompany him to learn a little about some of the old ways of the gamekeeper/poacher, always accompanied by at least one canine helper and inspired by the works of Ian Niall and the Wigtownshire countryside.

The Stove Network

The Stove Network is a social enterprise based in the heart of Dumfries town centre, we use arts and creativity as tools to involve our local community in deciding and shaping the future of our town for its people. We are a hub for the region’s creative sector and initiate partnership projects that result in festivals, events, new organisations/groups and a programme of regular activity. The Stove won the Scottish Regeneration award for Creativity in 2016 and initiated the Midsteeple Quarter project – a £30M community-led regeneration project for Dumfries town centre.

Wild Goose Festival is a pilot for a new multimedia festival in Dumfries that uses the migratory route of the Barnacle Geese between Svalbard and the Solway Estuary to join people, nature and ideas across Scotland and the Arctic. The Wild Goose Festival is an innovative way of connecting literary tourism with the established nature and environment tourism offer in Dumfries and Galloway.

Wild Goose Festival will include ‘Riverrun’, a weekend festival of nature writing for all ages (17-18 October). Riverrun includes ‘Mother Goose’ events for children. Mother Goose events will engage with authors writing for young people as well as seeking out topical and relevant programming that connects to the geese and exploration themes. The festival will also showcase local authors writing for children in Scots.

The Spot-lit Literary Tourism Product Innovation Programme will be delivered by Business Tourism Solutions in conjunction with Wigtown Festival Company.

Spot-lit is a multi-partner project supported by the Northern Periphery and Arctic Programme and delivered in Dumfries & Galloway by Wigtown Festival Company. For more information and regular updates, visit www.spot-lit.eu.

Spot-Lit Project Update COVID-19

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With the coronavirus (COVID-19) situation developing quickly, we believe it’s important to keep stakeholders informed about how Spot-Lit.eu is responding to the outbreak. Our philosophy is to approach this situation with empathy and safety; Spot-Lit top priority is the health and safety of our team, our stakeholders and project  partners.

Like many organisations we have taken precautions and we are now all working from home with all face to face meetings now replaced by electronic meetings.

At Spot-Lit.eu we are fortunate in that we’ve been able to move our team to social distancing/working from home and there should be minimal disruption to workflow. The project partners continue to work to deliver The Spot-Lit programme, meet project deliverables and engage productively with our funders, partners and stakeholders.

If you wish to contact any of the Spot-Lit partners – our contact details can be found at this link.

As one, the partners are also keen to express their belief that the continued support for our remote SMEs, especially those in the hard-hit tourism industry, now has greater importance than ever for our regions’ economies. Projects such as Spot-Lit make a vital contribution in this regard.

The stained glass portrait of Robert Burns found in the Bute Hall.

Robert Burns Is Worth £203 Million Annually In Direct Value To Scotland

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University of Glasgow Research Finds Robert Burns Is Worth £203 Million Annually In Direct Value To Scotland, And Amonst £140 Million In Brand Value.

Scotland’s national bard is worth just over £200 million a year to the Scottish economy and the poet’s brand is worth nearly £140 million annually, a report by the University of Glasgow has revealed.

The year long study funded by the Scottish Government and led by the University’s Professor Murray Pittock assessed how much the worldwide fascination with Robert Burns is supporting Scottish business and jobs.

It found that Burns economic and cultural importance to the Scottish economy is now estimated to be £203 million annually and the bard’s brand is worth £139.5 million a year.

While there have been studies of the economic impact of cultural Burns industries before – by economist Lesley Campbell (2003) and Moffat Centre (2005) who both valued Burns impact to Scotland at £157 million – this is believed to be the first assessment carried out on this scale.

In the last 20 years, there has been a substantial series of changes have taken place in Scotland recognising the poet’s importance including the opening of the £23 million Robert Burns Birthplace Museum in 2009 which has helped transform the visitor experience.

Within the UK, culture and heritage tourism in Scotland attracts more visitors than anywhere outside London. Robert Burns Birthplace Museum in Alloway is second only to Shakespeare among UK writers’ museums in its visitor numbers

The new University of Glasgow research proposes ways in which that Scotland could make even more of its national bard, in economic and cultural terms.

Professor Pittock of the Centre for Robert Burns Studies at the University’s College of Arts said: “More than 250 years after his birth, Robert Burns, his life and work, still holds a huge fascination for a worldwide audience.

“Burns has universal appeal with his work being translated into every single major language including Russian, German, French and Chinese. While Auld Lang Syne is our New Year anthem and has been performed by everyone from Elvis Presley to Jimi Hendrix.

“We are very fortunate to have such an iconic Scottish figure like Burns. We have been able to put a value of over £200 million on the tourism, products, festivals and estimate an additional embedded brand value of almost £140 million which Burns brings to Scotland. What it shows is that Burns the Brand makes a huge contribution to the economy of Scotland.

“We hope that our research will help to inform and encourage Scotland to continue to develop plans to promote Burns at home and abroad. It also shows the great potential of Burns’ brand to support regional inclusive growth from hotels and restaurants to food, drink and memorabilia.”

Economy Secretary Derek Mackay said: “I welcome this report and the work conducted by Professor Pittock to explore the contribution of Robert Burns to the Scottish economy.

“It goes without saying that the cultural and societal importance of Burns the brand is enormous. In fact, the report highlights that the values and identity of Robert Burns – the lover of nature, the innovator, and the humanitarian – resonate with the identity of modern Scotland.”

 

The biggest single source of economic impact is Burns-related tourism – it brings in in just under £155 million, almost two-thirds of which (£121 million) goes to Ayrshire and Arran where the poet was born and lived most of his life.

Burns Night, the celebration which takes place on the anniversary of the poet’s birth on 25 January, has a turnover of £11 million in Scotland.

Burns Festivals throughout Scotland have an estimated value of £7 million to Scotland’s economy. While spending on Burns-related food and drink is estimated to be £20 million and University research and education on Burns is estimated to bring £500,000 a year.

Among the recommendations to further enhance Scotland’s economy by harnessing the Burns brand to drive economic growth for Scotland includes –

  • Recognition of the work carried out by the Robert Burns World Federation in supporting Burns in schools and local authorities in Ayrshire and Arran and Dumfries and Galloway to work more closely with them. That Education Scotland is pro-active in disseminating good quality practice in Burns-related education in schools with the support of the Centre for Robert Burns Studies.
  • That the Scottish Government should establish a Burns Humanitarian Ambassadors programme or award to recognise work carried out in Scotland and abroad which supports the values with which Burns, and the country are both associated with.
  • Consider recommending the renaming of Prestwick Airport after Robert Burns to its new owners.
  • Signage and infrastructure to be improved on the M74 to better reflect Burns’ appeal and the strong pull of cultural tourism in the Ayrshires and south west of Scotland.
  • Greater awareness of evidence for higher cultural tourism spend, the future investigation of the effective development of the Mozart brand in Austria and the incorporation of Burns Supper Information on the Scotland’s Winter Festivals website.
  • Greater alignment between food, produce and cultural tourism in Ayrshire and Arran and Dumfries and Galloway regional tourism plans.

The research was given £46,000 funding by the Economic Development Directorate of the Scottish Government following a debate in the Scottish Parliament on a motion put down by Joan McAlpine MSP on the economic potential of Robert Burns on 17 January 2018.

Born in 1759, Robert Burns’ poems and songs have been translated into every major language, and his influence has extended far beyond Scotland. Some 9.5 million people worldwide are estimated to attend Burns Suppers annually.

The Centre for Robert Burns Studies
The Centre for Robert Burns Studies at the University of Glasgow has the biggest concentration of Burns experts in the world. It was established in July 2007. Its mission is the development of research, scholarship and teaching in the area of Robert Burns, his cultural period and related literature.

The Centre for Robert Burns Studies is currently working on a 15 year project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council called Editing Robert Burns for the 21st century. By 2024, it will have produced a new multi volume edition of his entire work published by Oxford University Press. It has attracted research and development income well in excess of £4 million since

Courtesy of University of Glasgow https://www.gla.ac.uk/news/headline_705300_en.html

Major new three-year literary tourism pilot programme set to launch across four Northern European countries this Autumn.

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Spot-lit is a new three-year project that aims to grow the literary tourism sector in the Northern Periphery and Arctic region by supporting the organisations and businesses in this culturally-rich region to grow collaborate and better engage audiences together. Literary Tourism is an emerging niche sector within the wider cultural tourism sector, where places with literary heritage offer author and fiction-related literary tourism opportunities along with opportunities arising from literary festivals, trails and book shops.Funded by Interreg Northern Periphery and Arctic Programme, the regions participating in the Spot-lit programme area are Western Ireland, Northern Ireland, Eastern Finland and South-West Scotland.

All share a number of common features such as low population density, low accessibility, low economic diversity, abundant natural resources, and high impact of climate change.

Collectively, the region is home to world-class literary icons and landscapes, however, research suggests there is potential for this sector to work together and grow significantly. Current low levels of joined-up literary tourism activity in the Northern Periphery and Arctic Region make it a sector that is ripe for development.

Spot-lit addresses the need for shared development and marketing of existing assets and the development of new ones, which respond to emerging literary and cultural consumer needs. This will result in a better cultural tourism offering and deliver greater economic impact than projects developed in national isolation.

The programme will include the development of a cluster network across the regions, a series of support workshops, the development of 20 new literary products or services and shared learning and transnational marketing.

Wigtown Book Town

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A book lovers haven – and with over quarter of a million books to choose from, old and new … it is impossible to escape empty-handed.

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Moat Brae

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Moat Brae is a Georgian townhouse designed by Walter Newall in Dumfries, Scotland. It was built in 1823 in the Greek revival style. J. M. Barrie, creator of Peter Pan, played in the house and garden as a child from the ages of 13-18 whilst at school at Dumfries Academy.

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Edinburgh City of Literature

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In 2004, Edinburgh became the first literary city. It hosts the annual International Book Festival and has its own poet laureate.

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