DSP Winter Meeting, 2006

~ Summary of Presentations and Workshops

1. DSP Update: Presented by Deb Benham (See attached PowerPoint presentation)

2. Presentation by Richard Fairbairns, Sea Life Surveys, Mull and Wild Scotland Chair.

Richard Fairbairns was the first person in the UK to start whale and dolphin watching trips. He has been running SeaLife Surveys on Mull for almost 25 years and continues to be involved though his sons have taken over much of the running of the business in recent years. Richard has also been involved in Minke whale research for the last two decades and was involved in setting up the Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust which continues this work today. As well as his business and research interests Richard is also the Chair of Wild Scotland. Richard presented an overview of his background, then went on to explain why he believes it is important for wildlife tour operators to come together in a national operators association i.e. Wild Scotland. Wild Scotland now has over 500 members across Scotland representing a wide range of land and sea based wildlife tourism businesses. Membership of Wild Scotland provides significant marketing benefits, they also organise training events and regular meetings which are an excellent way to network with other tour operators across Scotland. Wild Scotland believe that Scotland is Europe’s number 1 wildlife watching destination and that as such we have a responsibility to provide the very best level of service and wildlife experience possible. This also involves making sure that we are examples of best practice for responsible, sustainable wildlife watching. Richard spoke of the benefits that Wild Scotland has had for his own business and encouraged DSP operators who were not already members to consider joining. Richard also spoke of his conviction that high quality interpretation and educational materials, trained guides & staff and customer satisfaction surveys can all have a significant impact on the success of a wildlife tourism business. He suggested an ‘exchange programme’ whereby operators from the Moray Firth could go and visit Mull to see how SeaLife Surveys run their business and he and his staff could come out on some of the Moray Firth boats.

3. Wildlife Tour Boat Operators Society Update

Eric Wardlaw provided a brief update from the WTBPOS meeting held prior to the DSP meeting. He explained that as some of the WTBOS members were unable to attend, the meeting had been quite short. Two new DSP steering group members had been nominated; Sarah Pern of Ecoventures for the inner Moray Firth and Bill Ruck of Moray Diving for the outer Moray Firth. Eric expressed thanks on behalf of the operators for the work that the DSP has been carrying out and for organising the meeting.

4. A New Buckie Operator: Presented by Kevin Herd of White Horse Charters

Kevin Herd gave a presentation about White Horse charters and their plans for their new business. Both Kevin and his business partner Chris Temple are divers and lifeboat crew. The White Horse is primarily a diving boat but they also hope to run other types of trips such as wildlife watching, research, photography, corporate events etc. However, in recognition that there are already several operators offering short 1-3 hour coastal wildlife watching trips in this area and that this market may be saturated, White Horse intend to offer a different kind of trip which they think will appeal to a new/different market from the existing operators. They plan to offer longer, live aboard trips of 1-3 days & nights. These trips will be marketed as an entire short break, with high quality food on board and evening stop-offs at places of interest around the Moray Firth coast. The wildlife watching trips they intend to do will be further out to sea, concentrating on offshore species. They are happy to talk to any of the DSP operators about their plans and are keen to work in collaboration with existing operators and with the DSP.

Workshops

1. A New DSP Research Project? Stephen Westcott (WiSe) and Susanna Curtin (Senior Lecturer in Tourism Management at BournemouthUniversity)

Stephen and Susanna were invited to present some ideas for a research project which could be conducted this coming season. The aim of the proposed project is to address some of the questions that have arisen in the DSP over the last two years. For example; is the DSP protecting wildlife from disturbance andincreasing the conservation value of wildlife watching whilst ensuring that operators can run their businesses in a practical way? Other questions have been raised by DSP operators or steering group members and include the issue of speed and whether there should be speed guidelines in sensitive areas and/or during transit. In addition, the DSP code of conduct has been under review and this project could look at whether the outer Moray Firth code was working for everyone and whether it needed to be changed or amended e.g. do we need to retain the areas approach? In addition to these sorts of questions, a research project would also be able to look at whether we are currently ‘getting it right’. For example, what is the current level of customer satisfaction? What could the DSP do to support operators in improving the wildlife watching experience and attracting more customers?

Stephen and Susanna gave a brief overview of their background in wildlife and tourism research. Stephen is a well respected seal researcher and wildlife tour operator, working mostly in the south west of England. In the last few years he has been invited to conduct several studies of interactions between wildlife and vessels and has subsequently been involved in helping to develop seal and other wildlife watching guidelines and management plans for wildlife tourism. He is also one of the key WiSe trainers. Susanna has extensive experience conducting social research in the wildlife tourism field and has collaborated with Stephen to assess visitor attitudes toward wildlife watching guidelines. Stephen and Susanna emphasised that any research project they conducted would only be done with the full consent and collaboration of the DSP operators. They were keen to ensure that the outcomes of the project were useful for the operators as well as for the ongoing development of the DSP. Stephen has worked very closely with tour operators before and is an operator himself. He was keen that DSP operators take part in the development of this project and suggest questions that they would like the project to answer. This project is an excellent opportunity to continue the improvement and development of the DSP and to make sure that it remains an example of best practice for wildlife watching and has significant benefits for accredited tour operators.

Workshop Outcomes

The operators and steering group members attending the workshop supported the idea of conducting this research. The tour operators were willing to have Stephen on their boats as a crew member who would also act as a guide/naturalist while on board. There was support for looking at the current code of conduct, the areas approach and the issue of speed. There was also support for conducting some market research on customers. It was suggested that Stephen could do some photo ID on seals and develop seal interpretation materials. These could include a recognition key for individualseals which would allow operators to recognise and tell the story of individual seals, also details of seal behaviour, seasonal patterns etc.

2. Marketing & Quality Assurance. Robert Cullen and Robin Murray (Visit Scotland)

Robert and Robin gave an overview of Visit Scotland’s marketing policy (see attached document) and discussed ways in which VS could support operators. They discussed ‘Challenge Funding’ which is VS funding available to groups of tourism businesses for marketing purposes. VS will supply up to 40% of the funds needed for a marketing project. Robert also discussed the Wildlife Experience Quality Assurance scheme and invited operators who had taken part to comment on this. They discussed ways in which the DSP could support accredited operators to achieve higher star ratings in the QA scheme if they wanted to take part, for example by providing additional interpretation materials and training for guides.

Workshop Outcomes

The Visit Scotland workshop concentrated on how tour operators can increase the earning potential of their businesses and how the DSP can support them with this. Various marketing strategies were discussed e.g. using enquiries to the DSP website to create a database of potential customers, to whom direct marketing materials could be sent. VS recommended looking at the Skye tourism website (www.skye.co.uk) for ideas on maximising web site usefulness. It was also suggested that we could link up with land basedwildlife tour and accommodation providers across Scotland to try and reach new markets and encourage people to stay in this area longer e.g. Linking up with Green Tourism accredited accommodation providers. The simplest way to do this would be to link to each others websites and to have an agreement whereby accommodation and tour providers refer customers to each other.

The DSP could attend more wildlife and tourism events to promote the DSP scheme and DSP operators. The DSP could also join Visit Scotland and pay for the new DSP leaflets (with a list of operators inserted) to have guaranteed racking in all the Tourism Information Centres (TIC’s) across the Highlands and Aberdeenshire (24 in total). This should increase the number of people coming into contact with DSP leaflets and contacting DSP accredited operators. It may also encourage people who were not planning to come up to the Moray Firth to venture up here for a wildlife watching trip. This is only possible as all the DSP operators took part in the pilot Wildlife Experience quality assurance scheme this year. VS are moving toward only promoting Quality Assured businesses so taking part in the pilot QA scheme means the DSP can provide operator details in the TIC’s - as an insert in the DSP leaflets.

The need for the DSP to be a strong and recognised brand was discussed, this should be improved by new DSP leaflets, posters and laminated stickers for accredited boats (currently being produced). Increasing recognition and awareness of the DSP will occur through ongoing liaison with the media, getting articles into wildlife magazines, attending wildlife/conservation & tourism events and inviting journalists up to the Moray Firth to write articles about wildlife watching etc. These are all projects the DSP is currently working on.

Challenge funding was also discussed in more detail. It was explained that Challenge Funding can only be applied for by groups of 3 or more tourism businesses who have formed a constituted group (e.g. Wild Scotland has managed to secure some Challenge Funding). VS will supply 40% of the total needed for a marketing project, the rest has to come from the operators/group. If operators wanted to apply through the DSP, any money being used by the DSP for promotion and marketing (£2,000 budgeted for this year-with help of new SNH grant) would count as part of the matched funding. However, operators would still need to contribute about £200-£300 each as the minimum grant that can be applied for is about £6,000. The end result would be more money for marketing the operators as a whole, however all the DSP operators would need to support the idea. Overall, this was not felt to be the best strategy for marketing this year as it required such a big commitment from the operators. It was thought to be worth considering more at a later date– potentially for next year. Instead, this year, the marketing emphasis will be on the DSP producing new leaflets, joining VS and paying to have leaflets in more TIC’s, attending events and getting more media coverage etc.