Duns info needs updated
A HIGH profile member of the Borders Party has criticised a national tourism website for its failure to entice visitors to a Berwickshire town.
Author Richard Havers described the visitscotland.com site as "crass", and added that the section on Duns needed to be updated, corrected and made more interesting.
Mr Havers' criticism of the site originally focused on the spelling mistake of the Duns profile reading: "Duns became a county town of Berwickshire, thriving thanks to its livetsock (sic) market."
On closer inspection, Mr Havers perceived other problems, with the profile on Duns being less than 50 words in length and a search for accommodation in Duns producing just two matches.
Mr Havers said: "Duns (profile) has a picture of a horse and a girl in a field - would you visit Duns on the back of that? Why is something like Cranshaws (near Duns) not mentioned, which saw the biggest Reiver's raid ever when 1000 cattle were stolen.
"If you look at the front page (of the Borders section of visitscotland) Duns isn't even mentioned. It has to be done properly with a full description.
"It is not just Duns - many other places don't even have a profile.
"It needs seriously revamped to make it more interesting, exciting and up to date."
Mr Havers was involved with the Borders Party's proposal prior to the local elections in May, which wishes to establish a local tourist organisation instead of the present VisitScotland Borders. The plans were brought about after fears from Mr Havers and others that the Borders is becoming somewhere that tourists are unaware of.
Indeed, disenchanted with how tourism is marketed in the area that Mr Havers is in the process of setting up his own website focused on promoting the Lammermuir Hills as a tourist destination.
He said: "In America there are places called fly over states - the Borders has become one of them. People drive through Selkirkshire, Roxburghshire and Berwickshire to get to the Highlands. We are drive through counties."
Among other ideas within the Borders Party plans is an extended Reivers trail across the region and an ambitious plan for a Borders Embassy in North America.
Mr Havers, who is also a prominent writer having written books with ex-Rolling Stone Bill Wyman, said: "They are marketing the wrong things. We have beautiful scenery but our history is fantastic.
"I spoke to a tourist official who said the history of the Reivers was too gory - it is unique and interesting. Fiona Armstrong (Border TV newscaster) tried to set up a Reiver's trail near Hawick but the tourism board should be extending across the region.
"Other interesting things that could be included on the VisitScotland website is the small kirk at Ellemford where King James met his generals before the Battle of Flodden.
"We should be targeting American tourists with genology based tourism and marketing to our strengths. All you get just now is stuff on the mills and the (River) Tweed. How many mills are left in the Borders?"
VisitScotland.com was set up as a Public Private Partnership (PPP) in 2002. It is run by private company eTourism Ltd for VisitScotland, who is Scotland's national tourist board.
It boasts on its website that "VisitScotland.com is the country's most comprehensive source of bookings and information on Scotland."
A spokeswoman for VisitScotland.com said they were grateful for suggestions to improve its website.
She also claimed the spelling mistake on the Duns page was "silly" and had now been corrected - although as we went to press the error was still present.
She added: "We warmly welcome these comments and value the opinions of all positive ambassadors for Borders tourism.
"These ideas are exactly the kind of information we are looking for as we develop and make major improvements to the website in the coming months.
"There is alot of work to be done and we've taken note of Mr Havers details and look forward to discussing his ideas with him as we look to build more interesting and dynamic content for visitors to Berwickshire.
Pamela McMahon, area director for VisitScotland Borders said her organisation hoped the website would better serve tourism in Berwickshire in the future.
She commented: "It is disappointing to hear that people are having problems with the VisitScotland.com website for the Berwickshire area.
"We will work closely with VisitScotland.com to ensure that the information held on the site is added, amended and updated as soon as possible.
"We would encourage people to help us with constructive criticism on mistakes that they pick up so we can ensure that the VisitScotland.com site has comprehensive information for the whole of the Scottish Borders, including Berwickshire."
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Weather for Duns
Thursday 17 May 2012
Today
Light rain
Temperature: 5 C to 9 C
Wind Speed: 10 mph
Wind direction: South west
Tomorrow
Light rain
Temperature: 4 C to 8 C
Wind Speed: 17 mph
Wind direction: North east
