The image above was captured on 25 November 2006 and shows the first view of the home page of the website of our national tourist board. Instead of using every pixel to sell Scotland, this extremely valuable page (in terms of its marketing potential) is aportioned roughly as follows:
Header and menus----------17%
Advert for JACTravel---------23%
Advert for WWF/BT----------13%
Accommodation search-----23%
Map of regions----------------23%
A first visitor to the site is told nothing about Scotland and associated activities unless they scroll down the page and over a third of the page advertises a travel agent and a product unrelated to tourism! The visitor is being denied easy access to information, and accommodation providers are pushed even further from their target audience.
Alastair Morgan MSP has indicated his support for the campaign to stop this kind of advertising. You can read his letters to Alan Keith and Patricia Ferguson MSP Minister for Tourism, Culture & Sport by clicking on the links.