Explore Campbeltown 

Springbank Distillery now have a tourism and events person, our very own Mairi Paterson.   Mairi is presently working on an exciting new project which will we hope benefit all local businesses.

Springbank Distillery, Ardshiel Hotel and the Machrihanish Holiday Park have got together to set up a web page under the name www.explorecampbeltown.com which will create an online directory of all local businesses.

Currently there is no other site offering this type of information and we feel there is a great need to showcase all of the goods and services we have here to encourage people to come to this beautiful part of the world. Our intention is to include each and every business in the area to emphasise exactly what we have to offer as a community. We get between 4,000 and 5,000 visitors to the distillery each year and we are extremely keen for as many of those as possible to spend at least one night in Campbeltown/Kintyre and explore the area in general. At present, a significant number of our visitors are merely “day-trippers” and heading straight from Springbank to the ferries to Islay or Arran, but we would much prefer it if they would spend more time in our area.

They key to http://www.explorecampbeltown.com/ will be in the fact that it is designed to be 100% inclusive – we would like to include every independent shop, every hotel, every visitor attraction, every service, whether you are a hairdresser or a retail outlet, a town centre hotel or a rural campsite, a golf course or a surf school, car hire or bike hire. Most importantly, there will be absolutely no charge to anyone and no business will be given priority over any other. We intend to list each business alphabetically under relevant categories, with a link to your own website, if you have one, where you can then promote your own business to the visitors.

We are happy to pick up the cost involved with setting up, designing and hosting the website as part of our company’s overall commitment to creating a brand to promote the area on a global basis.

We will be printing the www.explorecampbeltown.com web address on every carton of whisky, gin and rum we sell to 42 different countries to help spread the work and we will encourage every local business to either add stickers to their gifts and/or carrier bags or their packaging materials and to add the address and logo to their own websites and stationery which they may use.

All local companies will be treated equally with no single company being favoured over another so that even very small companies have the same opportunities as the larger ones who could perhaps afford to advertise on a bigger scale.

The directory will simply be a well-designed, easy to use website, with a listing for each business including phone number and a link to each business’ website, if they have one. If they do not, Mairi will be on hand to advise them  how they can a free, one page site which can be set up with the minimum of effort.

Springbank Distillery hosted an open evening a few weeks ago in the Tasting Room for representatives from local businesses and were overwhelmed with the positive response.

Mairi has been very busy since then, taking registration forms and details of what each business has to offer so that visitors to the town can have a look at the directory and see just what they can look forward to when they come to Campbeltown.

The website is in the process of being set up but to keep up to date with what’s going on login to Facebook where you can go into explorecampbeltown.

SLÁINTE

Janet

for Springbank Society

For the Springbank Society

(Please contact Janet directly to join the Springbank Society society@springbankwhisky.com )