Tourism is priority sector for Angus, contributing £240m to the local economy through visitor and business expenditure.

The Business Angus team identified the establishment of a tourism industry leadership group as a priority, to provide a forum for the industry to network and collaborate as well as inform the strategic direction of tourism in Angus.

The team worked with a number of key tourism businesses and organisations to form the Angus Tourism Cooperative (ATC) in 2017.

The ATC is a membership organisation, which provides a voice for the tourism sector in Angus and a forum to work together to share views, identify new opportunities and develop the skills and experience of members.

The ATC currently has 70 members, and is involved in a number of activities, including a project which aims to promote Angus as a dog friendly destination.

It is also a delivery partner in an ambitious LEADER funded transnational cooperation project. The ‘Flourishing Destinations’ project promotes community led tourism development in partnership with other rural communities in Belgium and Romania. Angus businesses and ambassadors have the opportunity to visit Romania and Belgium and have welcomed visitors from those countries. A series of community events and pilot projects are also being delivered to develop local tourism in an organic way that benefits the wider community.

The ATC has also exhibited at VisitScotland expo, the premier business to business travel trade event for Scotland, where they had the opportunity to meet buyers from across the world, to showcase the Angus offer.

In addition, the ATC was instrumental in the development of the revised Angus Tourism framework, 2019-2024, and are part of the leadership group overseeing the delivery of the framework, which has the vision ‘to work together with pride and passion to create, deliver and share inspirational experiences for all visitors to Angus’.

Representatives from the ATC also contributed to the development of the first Tay Cities Region Tourism Strategy, which aims to increase the value of tourism across the Tay Cities region over the next five years. They will continue to be involved and will be instrumental in informing the delivery of the regional tourism strategy.