Launching a New Tourism Website in the Middle of a Pandemic!
Yes, timing couldn’t be worse really could it? A year ago when Catherine and I discussed getting a new site together with all these ideas of what we wanted, we obviously had no idea that the tourism industry would be in complete chaos along with the rest of the world a year later.
Anyway, we’re here, we’re live, and this new site has been a long time in the making with so much help and support from a variety of people we want to shout about it, even if no one can travel at the moment! Grab a cup of something hot, or a glass of something cool and have a browse.
Who is interested in a LAUNCH OFFER
** USUAL PRICE ** £95 per year, April to April with a pro rata amount due if you join part way through the year.
** HELPING HAND PRICE ** Buy next years membership now and we’ll throw in this year’s for FREE as our small way of trying to help you get through this difficult time. That’s your membership paid for until April 2022 for just £95!
For any tourism related business in Scotland who is interested in becoming a True Highlander, you can find out what is included in your membership and GET LISTED here.
So, what’s new with True Highlands
Some of our True Highlands members – or True Highlanders as we are referring to them, have been with us since the start of True Highlands, back in the day when it was just Catherine doing all the work. Many more have joined along the way and the overriding thing we wanted to offer them was a full page each to wax lyrical about their business, have links to all their social media, their website, a contact form that goes directly to them, a map location so you can see where they are and photos of their amazing business. This is now in place and will be for every new member that joins us going forward. You can read much more about them and why they are so special, you can follow them on social media – especially helpful at the moment for all these small businesses dealing with lockdown and a complete cessation of business at the moment.
What Else Have We Added
One of the things that always drove us mad right from the start was the way the tourism industry lumps the Highlands and Islands into one giant area. We’ve always split things up into smaller areas, and now we are also including individual towns within those areas, and we plan on adding to them as time goes on. Want to know more about a particular town, and we haven’t covered it, well let us know, and we’ll get our brains into gear and put a new page up for you. We want this new site to expand and not stay static so any suggestions on what we can add will be gratefully received.
Our True Highlands Blog
The True Highlands blog has been hugely popular right from the start, so much so the thought of not bringing all the old blog posts with us to this new site was just not even a decision we had to agonise over, and believe me we agonised over a lot! On this new site we now have more categories for you to explore so go and take a look. We welcome guest blog posts from True Highlanders and you can write as many as you wish (within reason!) as part of your membership.
What About Tourism and Covid-19
Hmmm well, we are an optimistic pair Catherine and me, and whilst Scotland is currently still in lockdown, we do know that things will start to unlock over the coming months, and we want to be ready to welcome visitors back to the Highlands in as safe a way as possible. Just so you know, we live 90 miles apart and haven’t seen each other since February, so we can’t wait to get out and get a coffee or something to eat that we’ve not had to make ourselves, and talk to each other face to face rather than on email, messenger or the phone. We are pretty sure you’ll be feeling the same, so do please take a look at our members in the areas you fancy visiting and WHEN SAFE TO DO SO, come and visit, you will be very welcome. Supporting our independent, small business advertisers will help a great deal in supporting them to remain in business.
We’re not sure what ‘normal’ will be for the forseeable future, but it won’t be the normal we were all used to, and maybe that’s a good thing. We’ll take more time to build relationships with those businesses that have come out the other side of this pandemic and who have adapted to the new normal and are keen to get going again, we’ll have a better appreciation of the countryside, the lack of noise, the solitude – well what better place than the Scottish Highlands to appreciate that?
Welcome to our new website, it’s good to see you here!
Katie & Catherine
