Hansard

In the first debate of the new year, I wish all members across the chamber a happy new year—it is a very appropriate time to reflect on and debate Scotland’s winter festivals. In particular, I welcome Claire Baker to her first debate as culture spokesperson for the Labour Party.

Eight years ago, the first Scottish National Party Government initiated the concept of and policy and funding for Scotland’s winter festivals to boost national and international celebration of St Andrew’s day, hogmanay and Burns night and to showcase the very many reasons why Scotland is a year-round visitor destination. Those dates were always celebrated, of course, but the Scotland’s winter festival programme helps to harness the significant collective potential of those key events by showcasing across the entire winter season the exciting range of events and activities that are on offer and which celebrate and promote our distinct traditions to the people of Scotland, our visitors and those with an affinity to Scotland from across the world.

Scotland’s winter festivals have three primary objectives: to celebrate and showcase our unique culture and creativity at home and across the globe; to boost tourism and the visitor economy; and to engage communities and enhance national pride.

Since their introduction, the winter festivals have gone from strength to strength. The 2013-14 events programme recorded a total footfall of around 250,000, which is an 8 per cent increase on the previous year.

Over 2014-15, we are investing around £500,000 in Scotland’s winter festivals, supporting a series of 18 funded events across 12 local authority areas. Those include the Oban winter festival, which included more than 50 events set around St Andrew’s day, and “Haggis, Beasts and Tatties”, which is a celebration of Burns at the Eden Court Theatre in Inverness.

The marketing and promotion of the winter festivals is led by the Scottish Government with support from VisitScotland.

Initial evidence from our most recent St Andrew’s day celebrations shows that the winter festivals are on course to deliver another great success. For example, there was a fantastic response to Historic Scotland’s celebration of St Andrew’s day, with 35,000 free tickets provided for 35 sites across the country, including Edinburgh castle, Linlithgow palace and the border abbeys.

The saltire festival in East Lothian from 24 to 30 November was also very successful. The race day at Musselburgh racecourse attracted a crowd of more than 1,500 people, and feast ‘n’ folk gave locals and visitors the chance to enjoy traditional music and a delicious Scottish menu at more than 14 bars and restaurants in the area.

To encourage people to join the celebration of St Andrew’s day, we again recruited a range of private sector organisations to offer free or discounted vouchers to attractions across Scotland. In 2014, 127 organisations signed up to be day out partners. In total, we reached out to around 270 partners in celebrating St Andrew’s day, including the Scottish Book Trust and Scottish Opera. All of that is evidence of exceptional partner collaboration and it provided visitors and communities with opportunities to sample many of Scotland’s attractions and also the fantastic natural larder for which we are renowned across the world.

Talking of Scotland’s larder, I am also delighted to now see our fish and our fish dishes being showcased on or around 30 November—as suggested by Jamie McGrigor in a previous St Andrew’s day debate—to reflect St Andrew the fisherman.

Edinburgh’s hogmanay, which is a key element of the winter festivals, is supported with a funding contribution of £100,000 from the winter festivals and £200,000 from the Scottish Government’s expo fund. It is a great success story. It generates £32 million for the Scottish economy and reaches almost 1 billion people in 200 countries across the globe. The 2014-15 hogmanay attracted more than 120,000 people over three days.

The Edinburgh event is one of the many highlights of Scotland’s hogmanay. It sits alongside a wealth of other events right across the country on or around 31 December, including for example the hogmanay concert in Stornoway. That was a sell-out and the wider festival programme there attracted more than 500 people.

We are now seeing new and innovative events to celebrate Scotland’s culture joining the hogmanay celebrations. Building on the success of 2014, on 1 January 2015, the “Scot:Lands” event invited audiences to come to the “Home Land” at the National Museum of Scotland to begin a journey around 10 atmospheric venues in Edinburgh’s old town, each curated and customised by notable Scottish artists and arts organisations from all over Scotland. That event was supported by the expo fund.

Let me take a moment to look at the three key aims of the winter festivals. First, they aim to enhance the celebration of Scotland’s unique culture and creativity and also to boost our international profile. St Andrew’s day is celebrated across the globe with events in, for example, Singapore, Istanbul, Rome and Montreal. We had 5 million people viewing the topic page on one of China’s most popular media channels, Sina Weibo. In order to promote Scotland, we have managed to showcase what are truly world events across the country and our cutting-edge culture and creativity on or around 31 December. There were unique music showcase events in Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Inverness and Oban, to name but a few places.

The second aim is to boost tourism. The winter festivals programme is positioned alongside other initiatives to ensure that Scotland offers a wide range of exciting and inspirational events right across the country throughout the year—they should not be seen in isolation.

The winter festivals programme both started off 2014 and brought it to a close. It was a momentous year for our country, when we celebrated homecoming in spectacular style and hosted the hugely successful Commonwealth games, which had a strong cultural programme that was part and parcel of the partnerships that drove the games. I will be interested to hear what Liz Smith says, but I am very focused on the fact that the success of our events, and the winter festivals in particular, comes from the partnerships that we have with many organisations. They are not driven from the top down and it is important that we reflect people and place.

We had a great year in 2014 with international events such as the Ryder cup and the MTV Europe music awards that have certainly put us on the global stage. Looking across 2014, we can see how the winter festivals programme, along with all the other events, helps to promote Scotland as somewhere to visit all year round, inspiring our visitors and communities to be part of all of Scotland’s brilliant moments.

We are now looking forward, into 2015, with the fantastic launch programme for the year of food and drink, which started on 1 January. Again, that is a great opportunity to showcase Scotland all year round.

Thirdly, the winter festivals aim to boost national pride and enhance community engagement and empowerment. On that subject, I want to focus on one element in particular. I was delighted to attend the finale of the multicultural homecoming celebration on 30 November last year. That programme, which was a partnership between BEMIS—empowering Scotland’s ethnic and cultural minority communities and the Scottish Government invited Scotland’s multicultural communities to celebrate homecoming. It included more than 40 different events across the country, which attracted more than 6,500 people. It was a great way to celebrate the modern Scotland and all the different cultures that form it. The finale event was held on St Andrew’s night, when we had spectacular celebrations with a range of exceptional performances, reflecting all the different communities in Scotland.

It was very clear to me that our multicultural communities are keen not just to celebrate home and St Andrew’s day in their own particular way but to share that celebration in an open and inclusive manner, and that is something that we will build on with BEMIS in 2015 and beyond.

Boosting our unique culture and our creative sectors has become a key part of what we do, and our winter festivals are a key element of our year-round programme. I am keen to build on that momentum by planning for 2015-16, with my officials. We will review the winter festivals strategy to ensure that, in keeping with our programme for government, we do all that can be done to boost local economies and encourage greater community participation in the events on offer. We will also look at how we can broaden things out to ensure that different activities happen in our more remote and rural areas, and I want to build on today’s debate and welcome any ideas and suggestions that members might have for boosting the winter festivals.

I thank all the communities, organisations, businesses and other partners that have worked so hard to make Scotland’s winter festivals a great success story, and I look forward to building on our impressive achievements as we move into 2015 and beyond.

I move,

That the Parliament notes the contribution that Scotland’s Winter Festival programme makes in promoting Scotland both nationally and internationally as a world-class cultural tourism destination and the perfect stage for events all year round; acknowledges that the programme of St Andrew’s Day, Christmas, Hogmanay and Burns Night celebrations is gathering momentum year-on-year and offers visitors, the people of Scotland and all those with an affinity to Scotland a real taste of the nation’s distinct traditions and contemporary culture through the promotion of Scottish music, arts, food and drink; recognises the role that the festivals have and will continue to play in supporting Scotland’s successful programme of themed years, and welcomes the contribution that the winter festivals make in helping to promote Scotland as a great place to visit, study, work, invest and do business all year round.