VisitScotland Borders is working hard to spread the word that the Scottish Borders is a must see, must visit destination through various local and national activities.

Preparation is well under way for the start of the first phase of our 2008/09 Marketing Opportunities Campaign, over the coming weeks you will be given the opportunity to buy into various Marketing Opportunities such as the Scottish Borders Breaks Guide and listings on www.visitscotland.com.

On the press front, we have been working with our national colleagues on an exciting promotion with the Edinburgh Evening News who are featuring the Borders Abbeys Way in their Weekender section for a 10 week period that started on 26 January, and we are planning a press visit in April to Melrose and the Borders Abbey Way.

We are exploring opportunities (again with national colleagues) on an Active Scotland sales promotion. It is intended that this will be a joint promotion between the Scottish Borders team and the Dumfries & Galloway team to promote the fantastic mountain biking facilities Southern Scotland has to offer through 7stanes.

We are also seeking to take advantage of Adventure and Fishing promotions that will involve postcards with relevant images and information attached to the front covers of specialist magazines such as Mountain Bike Rider and Trout & Salmon. These titles deliver high readerships and it’s likely we will print a combined total of around 180,000 postcards. It is intended that this activity will go into the April editions of the above magazines – on-shelf March.

We have been working on our VisitScotland Borders website since before Christmas and a refreshed and updated version of the website is scheduled to go live before Easter. We will let you know in due course when work is complete.