An exciting new golf course looks set to transform Kintyre after a marketing initiative attracted a record funding award of £65,000 from VisitScotland to promote the area as a major golf holiday destination.
The planned development will bring an estimated £3 million to the local area and cement Scotland’s reputation as the home of golf.
Under the name Golf Kintyre, a consortium of diverse local tourism businesses has developed a marketing project to attract some 5,000 new high-spending visitors to the peninsula over the next two years, on the strength of the new Machrihanish Dunes development, which, combined with the existing Machrihanish Golf Club, is widely expected to draw the world’s serious golf enthusiasts to Kintyre.
The national tourism agency is supporting the project with the largest ever award from its Challenge Fund, accounting for 40% of the total budget. The money will fund a marketing and PR programme that will deliver international golfers to the area from the USA, Canada, Sweden and Ireland, as well as the targeting the domestic market.
The campaign will capitalise on the world-wide interest in the area sparked by the development of the Machrihanish Dunes Golf Club, due to open in spring 2008. Designed by renowned Bandon Dunes architect David McLay Kidd, it will be the first real links course to be built in the west of Scotland for almost 100 years, and is expected transform the basis of Kintyre’s golf tourism from day visits to longer stays of short breaks and holidays.
The Golf Kintyre group comprises diverse tourism businesses including the two Machrihanish courses, local hotels, restaurants, attractions and transport operators. Loganair and Loch Lomond Seaplanes will both offer vital air access from Glasgow.
The award was celebrated earlier this month at a lunch in Campbeltown for the businesses behind the project. The lunch was attended by Jim Mather, Minister for Enterprise, Energy and Tourism, who is also MSP for Argyll & Bute.
Photo (above right): celebrating the record funding award for Golf Kintyre are (left to right) VisitScotland area director Iain Close, Golf Kintyre’s Brian Keating and Tourism Minister Jim Mather.
