So what kinds of tourism businesses in Scotland are giving a good experience to visitors? This is the question that www.extramilescotland.co.uk is trying to answer.
Launched in February 2007, the social networking website has now published well over a hundred comments about places ‘going the extra mile’ throughout Scotland.
Are any trends emerging? Johanna Campbell and Gilbert Summers, who run the site, think so. Comments from satisfied visitors seem to suggest that it is definitely the rural tourism businesses that are trying harder.
“While we have plenty of comments right across the country from Shetland to Galloway, we have to conclude that city-based businesses, with just one or two exceptions, are not well represented.” said Johanna.
“We’ve nothing from Aberdeen, for example, but more than twenty from the Northern Highlands. Even Fair Isle manages more than Dundee. And we’ve only published one comment for Glasgow, famous for its friendliness. We’re not saying the city hotels and restaurants don’t care – in fact; maybe ‘the extra mile’ is built in so that people expect it and don’t comment. But we get the impression it is the smaller rural businesses, like guest-houses and bed and breakfasts that are giving the visitor the best impression of Scotland”
Some examples of service worthy of note include the little hotel on Arran that gives its guests a home-baked treat to take if they’re going out on a walk, or the B&B in Onich that not only lent their guests maps, but phoned ahead to make sure all the places they wanted to visit were open. Then there is the holiday cottage owner in Galloway who welcomes his guest by playing the bagpipes on their arrival, or another Galloway B&B host who pours his guests a free dram if they arrive wearing a kilt.
And it seems it’s very often the little things that count: like the fresh bread and local biscuits awaiting guests in a Grampian self-catering cottage. One overseas contributor even nominated a whole town – St Andrews – for going the extra mile after so many locals assisted him when he had a nasty fall in the street.
www.extramilescotland.co.uk
