From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

VisitScotland is Scotland's national tourism agency. It is a public body, based in Edinburgh, with branch offices in Inverness and London.

VisitScotland owns 36% of visitscotland.com, a public-private partnership.

One of the organisation's tasks is attracting visitors to Scotland, which it does through advertising, promotional campaigns, as well as encouraging press articles on Scotland and what it has to offer the business or consumer visitor. VisitScotland has come in for criticism for not devoting sufficient resources to certain areas of the tourism industry and for spending money on areas that are not deemed suitable, for example Tartan Week, held each year in the United States of America. The high-profile of coverage afforded to VisitScotland shows the importance of tourism to Scotland's economy.

VisitScotland also aims to work with the tourism industry in Scotland to maintain standards in visitor attractions and accommodation provision, which it does through its quality grading schemes. VisitScotland works with its industry partners on area tourism partnership agreements.

One aspect of VisitScotland's work is it manages a network of websites featuring a variety of travel interest and holiday activity themes. These, include Golf, Walking, Cycling, City Breaks, Adventure, Ancestral, Ski Scotland and Wildlife and can be found via www.visitscotland.com. There are also a number of International language Scotland Gateway Web sites including the recent addition of the Come to Scotland website - the official Scottish Gateway for North America.^{[citation needed]}

• Tourism in Scotland

• Official Web site - www.visitscotland.orgThe corporate site of Scotland's national tourism organisation
• Official Web site - www.visitscotland.com The official guide to accommodation, activities, events and vacations in Scotland
• www.cometoscotland.com The official North American web site for travellers going to Scotland
• liveit.visitscotland.com VisitScotland's culture Website, featuring range of events and festivals in Scotland, and articles on cultural destinations, shopping and food and drink.
• www.ancestralscotland.com VisitScotland's ancestral website, featuring information and advice on how to research Scottish ancestry and how to plan a trip to Scotland around Scottish family history or clan history.

This article about an organisation in Scotland is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.