Tourism in the Highlands: past, present and future
What have been the themes and driving forces of Highland tourism throughout history? How have these changed and to what extent do they reflect the lived reality of the region’s inhabitants? How much is contemporary tourism governed by nostalgic or romantic views of the region and its place in a wider Scotland, and what drives these narratives? What role does Highland history have in the ‘global product’ that tourism has become? Can local people in the region help shape future tourism narratives which are more closely aligned to their own values? Or should we see tourism as a cultural construct which exists apart from reality?
These are some of the questions that we have been thinking about in the UHI Centre for History and which have prompted us to launch this roundtable reflection.
Our speakers will be examining tourism in the Highlands from historical and contemporary perspectives and offering insights from their own research. Four short talks will be followed by a wider discussion of the issues, as well as questions from the live and online audience. Join us for a unique opportunity to learn more about the historical influences on Highland tourism and to generate new ways of thinking about tourism in the future.
This event took place on Thursday 9 June 2022 and was recorded. You can watch the recording below:
Speakers:
- Professor Annie Tindley is Professor of British and Irish Rural History at the University of Newcastle with research interests on the aristocratic and landed classes, and landed estates and their management from the mid-eighteenth to mid-twentieth centuries. She is author of The Sutherland Estate, 1850-1920: aristocratic decline, estate management and land reform (EUP, 2010) as well as many publications on historical and contemporary land reform.
- Dr Steve Taylor is director of the Centre for Recreation and Tourism research at the University of the Highlands and Islands. He has wide experience of adventure tourism and research interests in sustainable travel, mountain biking, and the social and psychological elements of adventure sports and recreation.
- Alex Dold is a PhD researcher and assistant tutor at the Centre for History. Alex is investigating Diana Gabaldon's Outlander novel series concerning intertextuality and as a nostalgic kind of public history. She guides Outlander themed walking tours of Glasgow and Inverness, using these to inform her research, and tweets about her work @AlexDold.
- Julian Grant is a PhD researcher and assistant tutor at the Centre for History. His doctoral research examines the intersection between tourism and local communities around the North Coast 500 touring route in the far north of Scotland. Julian works with community heritage organisations to create community-generated perspectives on landscape and place, and tweets about his work @kilvaxter
Chair:
Professor David Worthington is Professor of History at the University of the Highlands and Islands and Director of the UHI Centre for History in Dornoch.