This month with Scotland Hour we’re trying to have a little fun and bring some good-hearted laughter to our monthly chat about all things Scotland. We hope you will join us and enjoy the theme alongside us. This month #ScotlandHour takes place on Wednesday, March 27th at 9 pm Scotland-time. Get your photos ready to attach to any relevant tweet and make sure to always include the hashtag #ScotlandHour. We’ll be tweeting in answer of these questions: 9:00 pm – Q1. What’s the wackiest name for a place that you have ever heard of in Scotland? #ScotlandHour 9:10 pm – Q2. What’s the wackiest ..read more

Our 12th year as a Twitter chat has been a tumultuous one as far as the social network itself goes and yet we’re still here, every last Wednesday – except in December – chatting about Scottish tourism under the hashtag #ScotlandHour. We plan to continue into 2024 and who knows what the year will bring. But we as a team remain hopeful and optimistic for Scottish Tourism and all our friends in Scotland. So, we want to end 2023’s Scotland Hour season positively by looking forward to tourism in Scotland in 2024.  Where are you looking forward to going that is new to you or are you going back ..read more

Scotland is known for its great outdoors and it’s one of the reasons people visit and visit again and again.  This year we welcomed the UCI World Cycling event in Glasgow and many other parts of Scotland.  We have wonderful mountains, forests and walking trails from the Hebridean way on the islands to the Southern Upland Way in the South.  We have arguably the best mountain biking and adventure sports in the world.  And being surrounded by water, our water sports are world class too with scenery that cannot be beaten.  So, for the October Scotland Hour we thought ..read more

For many people, Autumn is their favourite season in Scotland. Whether it’s your favourite season or not nobody can argue that the golden hues of summer make Scotland even more beautiful with the reward of sunrise and sunsets and even the Northern Lights too. So, for the #ScotlandHour on the 27th of September, we thought we would celebrate the glorious season of Autumn. Encourage new visits across Scotland or to return to old favourites. Find the best places to sample Autumnal food and drink. What are key events to enjoy? And how can you get out in the great outdoors and enjoy it all? Join us ..read more

When we survey our community every time there’s a chat, our natural surroundings are often a part of answers that may feel unrelated. The fact is we have lovely surroundings and whether the subject is food or festivals, the natural world is often a part of what we all feel makes Scotland so great. So we thought it was well past time we make “Nature in Scotland” our theme for a monthly chat. Give it the starring role is deserves. In addition, some members of our team are going through a tough time, and being out in nature always helps the mental health, doesn’t it! So it felt extra appropriate ..read more

Yes, yes, yes, we know that there’s some in Edinburgh pretty soon, which we’ll come on to, however, there are so many other festivals that take place in Scotland each year and on this month’s festival themed #ScotlandHour we want to find out all about them all! So what exactly is a “festival”? Well, amongst the many definitions online, for me the one that sums it up best is from the Cambridge Dictionary (that other dictionary gets too many mentions!) “an organized set of special events”. Tight enough to have some meaning and loose enough to not keep anyone away from the party. The range and d ..read more

#belocal June Scotlandhour celebrates Community Tourism   Scotland Hour are delighted that this month we are celebrating and sharing about a sector that is vital to Scottish Tourism.  Community Tourism.  What is community tourism you ask?  It is where a community is providing visitor services and experiences and in their home collectively looking at how tourism is managed.   Scotland has some of the best examples of Community Tourism in the world.  These community enterprises are represented by SCOTO.  SCOTO emerged from the Highlands and Islands Enterprise f ..read more

Welcome to the May #ScotlandHour which takes place on Wednesday the 31st of May from 9pm to 10pm Scotland-time. This month is about slow travel. How does taking more time to arrive where you’re going… in Scotland of course … make travel better? Does it make it better at all? Is it better for Scotland and for our planet, just as we discussed in March for our Sustainable Tourism chat. We shall discuss all that and more! We’ll be led by Mark and assisted by Fiona and Kirsten as usual!  Our wonderful guest hosts this month are our friends @VisitScotNews, as well as @beccaonthewing, and @Scot ..read more

Clachan Sands courtesy of Fiona Drane @FionaDrane This month we are talking all about our lovely Scottish islands as the weather gets better, the days get longer and we start to dream a little bit more. Hopefully you’ve been able to enjoy some time on at least one Scottish island and are as big a fan of them as we are. There are so many islands in Scotland and it wasn’t until reading up on this that we realised how many there actually were. 790. Yes, 790 ( we checked but didn’t count them all ourselves ). Be they big, or small, or really tiny, they all have something to offer and we want to le ..read more

Wednesday 29th March 9-10pm Read on as things are not all that they seem and we found out that “Sustainable Tourism” is more than just being Green! We often hear about the phrase sustainable tourism and how important it is for us all, so given that ScotlandHour is all about promoting tourism in Scotland, we thought it appropriate to have a closer look at it. What exactly is it? Well, in terms of the definition of sustainable tourism, the UNWTO define it as: “Tourism that takes full account of its current and future economic, social and environmental impacts, addressing the needs of visitors ..read more