Why make a conscious choice?
Communities across Scotland own and operate a range of tourism services and experience ready for you to enjoy. By making a conscious choice on your travels, any spend you make will have important benefits that are felt across the host community.Community intiatives are unlike some other toursim providers because they are owned and operated by the communities they serve. Every penny spent with a community enterprise is reinvested back into local services, generating immediate and long-lasting benefits for that host community.
Community Tourism operators deliver professional services and experiences with a warm local welcome. However, at their core there will always be a strong level of volunteer input with passionate locals devoting significant amounts of their time to make their community a better place and your experience memorable.
These community enterprises are invariably highly innovative and entrepreneurial in everything they do and each and every one you visit will be unique - often quirky!
What happens to the money you spend?
When travelling, any spend contributes to one of Scotland’s most important industries, worth over £11.6 billion for the national economy. You can make a conscious choice to spend with a SCOTO Community Tourism enterprise and in so doing that spend will bring great local benefits which are hugely important to these communities, many of which are remote and rural. These include:
providing much needed jobs and training for local people and helping young people stay in the community
improving the community’s natural capital, enhancing access to it and seeking to address climate change impacts
expanding the local offer, retaining much needed services and providing income streams to sustain other vulnerable activity
conserving assets, developing new cultural activity and keeping local traditions alive
developing and reinforcing the local sense of place and distinctiveness and providing responsible means of access
Offer your time
Catriona on UnstIf you have some time to spare and would like to lend a helping hand ask if there are any litter picks planned or a community garden you can help at.
Support local
Russell in DrumnadrochitDo what you can to buy local and support independent shops and family businesses. Most have a great story to tell if you chat when paying at the counter.
The money you spend on a night in the hostel or pods goes straight to help local young people do modern apprenticeships in hospitality and the running of the youth project. This is a direct impact, and you can sleep soundly knowing you are making a real difference to the lives of the young people in Callander.
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