Virtual Scotland - About Us
About Us
Virtual Scotland is a not-for-profit web site
This fact can not be understated as the main objective of the project is to promote Scotland as a tourist destination in a clear, precise and, ultimately, easy to use manner. The site started as a hobby site but is in the process of being rebuilt from the ground up. The reason for this is the terrible state of the official Scottish Tourist Board sites which are over bloated online booking sites that offer little information and make it virtually impossible for an accommodation provider to take bookings direct. A typical example would be an accommodation provider having no option but to pay a significant sum of money to register and then only getting one booking for the year from the official tourist board while taking numerous booking from alternative sites such as our own.
It is clear that there are severe problems with the Scottish tourism industry and many are annoyed at the current setup which has the industry represented online by a profit motivated bookings site rather than a public service which is what is required.
It is hoped that we will be able to fill this gap with Virtual Scotland which will continue to expand. Our ultimate aim is to provide a full service. This would include grading's as so many are now moving towards self accreditation and, so far, this has been rather accurate. However we have no intention of providing a bookings service at this time as we would much rather pass over the traffic directly to the providers site or allow the visitor to contact the accommodation provider directly via email, fax, telephone or snail mail. We feel that this is more satisfactory for both parties.
At the moment we will have to charge a small fee for inclusion if a provider does not have their own web site but we would hope that we can remove this once the site is established. We have removed almost all of the advertising that was on the site previously and this has had an impact on our income. As a not-for-profit site we will invest all income over expenditure on improvements to the site. However we still need to meet costs :-(
If you feel that you can contribute to this venture please contact us
Contributors:
Andrew Kelly - Editor, writer & photographer
James K - Photographer