News

11 Feb

Living Lerwick Announces Winners of Town Centre Prize Draw

Spending time, and money, in Lerwick town centre has paid off for two local winners. Taylor Sherwood, 6, from Lerwick spent time with family and friends enjoying the Viking January window trail. She successfully found all 17 past Jarl Squad suits and identified the year and Jarl. Leann Laurenson from […]

09 Feb

‘Loves Local’ Campaign Boosts Business in Dunbartonshire

A Shop Local campaign has been helping Dunbartonshire businesses by encouraging local people to shop local, think local and support local enterprises. Launched in October of 2020 in response the coronavirus pandemic, the “Loves Local” Campaign has been rolled out in 5 towns across Dunbartonshire including Bearsden, Bishopbriggs, Alexandria, Dumbarton […]

03 Feb

Aberdeen Gift Card Helps Aid City Centre Recovery

Clever marketing campaigns that tap into the support local sentiment through multi-business gift card programmes has meant two of the UK’s largest cities are streets ahead with local economic recovery. The Aberdeen Gift Card launched in late November, encouraging people to ‘give the gift of Aberdeen’ receiving over £150,000 in […]

02 Feb

Stirling BID Launches Arts Scheme to Transform Empty Shops

(Go Forth Stirling) – Eight artists have been selected for an ambitious project which will transform Stirling’s empty shops into vibrant works of art. The Street Stories initiative, launched by Go Forth Stirling Business Improvement District (BID), will see artworks featured on vacant shop windows including the city’s former BHS […]

01 Feb

Shop Local: Consumers Turn to Local, Multi-Venue Gift Card Schemes

Scottish fintech Miconex has revealed that over £1.9 million was spent through its Town and City Gift Card programmes in 2020, providing evidence that consumers are turning to local, multi-venue gift card programmes in a bid to support local businesses. The 2020 sales data represents 350% year on year growth for the firm. Perth […]

28 Jan

New ‘Placeity’ Initiative Focuses on Hyper-Local Collaboration to Help Local Businesses

(Placeity) – A locally sourced collaboration of businesses and individuals is at the heart of an innovative project that is offering a lifeline to a growing number of places in central Scotland. The Placeity initiative was set up in May amid the uncertainty and disruption caused by Covid-19 lockdown and […]

21 Jan

Scottish Government Support for the Tourism and Events Sector

(VisitScotland) – At the end of last year, the Scottish Government announced that tourism and hospitality businesses across Scotland were to benefit from a £104.3 million Scottish Government package. This funding will help a number of tourism and events businesses in key sectors who have received little or no support so […]

11 Jan

Phil Prentice: Thinking Local First Isn’t Just a Resolution – It’s a Lifeline

Lives and livelihoods depend upon us all remaining resolute to two key pillars in the battle against Covid-19 at this critical time: Staying safe and staying local. I’m not being unnecessarily dramatic by saying that. The message from the Scottish Government on this could not, after all, be clearer. To […]

06 Jan

Case Study: Welwyn Garden City Light up Christmas with Interactive Trail

Welwyn Garden City BID placed eight breathtaking Christmas light installations across the City Centre to welcome shoppers into the area. Each installation had a QR code that participants could scan using technology built into the LoyalFree app. Every interaction provided a chance to win one of many prizes and participants […]

22 Dec

Elgin and Edinburgh ‘Brainiest Scottish Places’ in Festive Gift Card Quiz

Elgin and Edinburgh have been crowned the brainiest Scottish places, taking second and third place in the Great Town and City Christmas Quiz. Over 400 towns and cities took part in the festive quiz from the four nations of the UK. After an early lead, Elgin were pipped to the first […]