ABSTRACT
The author of Bonnie Scotland, a 1916 guidebook, noted that the Highlands were the epitome of all the most popular tourist countries: the mountains of Switzerland, the lakes of Italy, the Rhine river of Germany, the cataracts of Norway, the scenery of Heidelberg, the air of Baden, the waters of Vichy, the cure of Marienbad. The ‘Scotland’ imagined by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century travelers was the product less of any objective reality of the country, than of the preconceptions, longings, and cultural concerns which they brought with them. Tourism is one of Scotland’s most important industries, its cenrrality to the nation’s economy underscored by its oversight by government agencies and Parliamentary ministers. Frank McAveety, Scotland’s tourism minister, praised the campaign as a ‘great example of the image should be promoting of Scotland – modern, vibrant, fun, exciting and welcoming'. McAveety, Scotland’s tourism minister, interpreted the findings about the prevalence of tartanry as motivation for stronger efforts to modernize Scotland’s image.
