SITE board group photo 2

Article published 06/07/2020

By Zahra McDonald, SITE Scotland President.

SITE (Society of Incentive Travel Excellence) Scotland last came together for our Annual General Meeting in early February 2020. Now with 80+ members, this is the largest chapter that SITE Scotland has ever seen. When we met at the start of this year and I began my role as Chapter President, we were totally oblivious to the uncertain times that were soon to become the new normal over the following months.

Our chapter is made up of suppliers to the incentive travel industry, with a mixture of DMC's, hotels, venues, entertainment companies, transportation companies, distilleries and visitor attractions. This incredible community from throughout Scotland has become a positive voice during this pandemic and gives us all an opportunity to reflect on the challenges that have been served to us. With so much uncertainty and several questions unanswered at this time, we have looked to each other for support, guidance and friendship.

The board at SITE Scotland are committed to ensure that all of our members have been able to have access to the most recent updates for the industry, customer feedback, government advice and information in order to assist all of our members to plan a strategy for their own recovery.

Each week, we have been hosting a members call (we call this #TartanTuesday) and at first it was more of a social hour where we focused on wellbeing, how to deal with the unknown and best practices for staying positive. As time then went on, we introduced a number of key speakers from all over the world to share their individual experiences. For example we had a member from SITE Italy share his story of lockdown in Rome and what it meant for his hotel, his personal wellbeing and of course mental health. These shared learning experiences will hopefully be invaluable to our members as they plan a route to recovery.

The hashtag #SITEStrong truly represents our Scottish chapter and together, we will bring back the incentive market to Scotland one day soon.

You can find out more about SITE Scotland's leading incentive businesses here.