Loch Lomond - The perfect holiday destination

Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park spans across 720 square miles of spectacular scenery and home to 22 different lochs.

Loch Lomond is the largest and most famous loch in Scotland and is an ideal holiday destination with a wide array of visitor attractions for all ages.

Cloudside Bed & Breakfast is located less than a mile and a half from the shores of Loch Lomond making this an ideal base for your stay in Scotland.

Newly refurbished en-suite rooms, cosy log fire in the guest lounge, delicious cooked breakfast in the morning and a friendly Scottish welcome awaits you at Cloudside Bed & Breakfast.

Book direct for the best possible rates www.lochlomondbandb.com or call 01389 601588

Dance by the Ayrshire Waterside

Love to dance? Then why not head along to the Waterside Hotel in Seamill on the Ayrshire Coast for a wonderful 'Strictly' Night? 

The event takes place on Friday 13th November from 7pm. Enjoy a cocktail on arrival and two course meal followed by a dance masterclass from Louie Fecou and his dance partner and all for £22.50. All levels are welcome, with or without a partner.

Louie is well known by Gailes Golf:Leisure:Spa members for his fun and energetic classes, so come join in. What better way to start the weekend.

The function suite is part of the new hotel wing added to the already established restaurant and it offers a wonderful venue overlooking the seaside and beach front - perfect for weddings and corporate functions alike. 

Why not make a night of it with an over night stay at the Waterside Hotel or our sister hotel. DBB packages from £125.00 based on two people sharing.

Find out more by calling the Events Team on 01294 824418. or Email them.

The hotel has a superb new website completed by Ayrshire based hospitality marketing company Plan B. Have a wee look here www.watersideayrshire.com 

Great Autumn Offer at The Oak Tree Inn Balmaha

The Oak Tree Inn at Balmaha is just one of our very favourite places to visit. The village is located on the east side of Loch Lomond and is not only easily accessible from the whole of central Scotland it offers genuine family hospitality and great value.

Once again this autumn the Oak Tree is offering a wide selection of half price bed and breakfast rooms from Sunday through Thursday nights running from the 5th of October until the 23rd of December.

These rates are ONLY available if your BOOK DIRECT and NOT through other sites. You can book direct on the hotel website.

Watch the video below and you will get a clear sense of the passion that drives this wonderful example of a family run business.

4 Ayrshire Golf Pro’s play 6 Championship Golf Courses in 1 Day!

Four local Golf Professionals are teeing off on a special charity golf challenge to play six of Ayrshire’s Championship courses in one day.

Attempting the feat to play six courses in one day on the 20th June, are the Head Professionals at four of Ayrshire’s finest golf courses, including three venues that have hosted the Open Championship 36 times between them.

Ricky Hall of Trump Turnberry, David Fleming of Prestwick Golf Club, Kieron Stevenson of Royal Troon Golf Club and Guy Redford of Dundonald Links, will be taking up this challenge in a bid to raise funds for a selection of charities.

The Eric Trump Foundation and CLIC Sargent have been named as the beneficiaries, with The Eric Trump Foundation raising funds as part of a new partnership that will help Yorkhill Children’s Charity.

Ricky Hall commented,

 “We all met working at Turnberry at various times over the years and we all have stayed in touch and remained friends. When we started to discuss the idea of doing something for charity it really had to involve golf and it’s great to be able base the concept around these six great golf courses. We will be out on the courses practicing but I’m not sure anything can really prepare us properly for what’s to come – we’ll be walking each course with no buggies or caddies, so it will be an interesting and exhausting day!
“We’re starting by teeing off on the Ailsa Course at 4am so we’re hoping that our alarm clocks are working properly!”

David Fleming from Prestwick Golf Club added,

“We know each of the courses really well which should make them quicker to play but there’s no doubt it’s going to be a real challenge for all of us. However, it’s all for a fantastic cause, so we’re looking forward to getting started, raising some money and perhaps even making it an annual event.”

The team will start on the Championship Ailsa course, before continuing on to the Kintyre Course, Dundonald Links, then the Portland and Old courses at Royal Troon, finishing at the birthplace of Open golf, Prestwick Golf Club at approximately 10:30pm.

To support the team, please visit www.virginmoneygiving.com/team/ayrshiregolfpros6coursechallenge

Kingsbarns Golf Links Receives Plaudits

We are not particularly into printing press releases from PR companies just for the sake of it but at least they do put the business back into your mind and so it was over the weekend with the bog standard stuff about a golf course receiving a new award and being placed higher on some golf course listing or another. We have become cynical about tourism awards in general as you can't move for yet another version of hotel/attraction/course of the year for here there and everywhere.

World banqueting business would drop by about 20% if it wasn't for the number of Annual Tourism Awards Ceremonies the industry holds!

Anyhow according to the release Kingsbarns Golf Links has finished the 2014 season on a high with special recognition at Scotland’s golf Oscars and a prominent showing in the latest edition of one of the UK’s most respected course rankings. The Fife course rounded off the year by picking up the top award at the Scottish Golf Tourism Awards and climbing up Golf Monthly’s top 100 UK & Ireland golf courses list for 2015/16.

Located near St Andrews, the links course has been one of the most discussed venues in Scottish golf tourism terms for more than a decade and for many was responsible for shifting some of the more dated service attitudes of the older Open Championship courses. It has benefited most certainly from being the close neighbour of The Old Course and world wide media and celebrity endorsement after co-hosting the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship for more than ten years. It is now scheduled to host the Ricoh Women’s British Open in 2017.

Discarding the awards for a second, the course really does deserve a mention. We haven't been operating as golf tour operators for some time but when we hosted our series of Drambuie Golf Classics around Scotland, Kingsbarns invariably came out with the best feedback.

The course got the mix right way back at the start and the management team recognised that the quality of the course could be complemented with quiet efficiency rather than out and out ostentatiousness. The welcome was always informal and very Scottish; the clubhouse surroundings comfortable and relaxing with no unnecessary formality; the staff local and lacking pretension.

Okay this was a couple of years back and we worry a little that the course now has a Chief Executive rather than a simple manager but what's in a title! The cost has risen quite substantially over the years but we are sure that it is still in safe hands under the watchful eye of Art Dunkley, director of Kingsbarns Golf Links whom I had the good fortune to meet during one of our events.

He was delighted with the award. “We have been extremely fortunate to receive so many compliments about our course and facilities,” he said. “This latest honour at the Scottish Golf Tourism Awards is especially important as it reflects our focus on creating the best possible links experience which includes more than just an enjoyable round of golf. Exceptional customer satisfaction is a large part of our total golf experience and I am extremely proud that the dedicated Kingsbarns team has been recognised for their constant focus on our customers.”

If you're planning a golf trip to Scotland Kingsbarns should be one for your list. Not cheap but rewarding.

Scotland's For Me Retro Postcard Campaign

We've been having great fun around the office in the last week rolling out a host of wee ideas to help promote our business partners around Scotland through our Scotland's For Me! brand.

One of the things we've had on our Must Do list for about a decade was the development of our Real People; Authentic Experiences campaign. Part customer review, part VisitScotland Brilliant Moments but driven from the ground up at all times and with the specific aim of generating direct business back to the the hotel or attraction, restaurant or golf course.

So just signing off on part of that overall campaign with some nice wee 1980's Retro style postcards that will be printing up and distributing through our hotel partners over the next few weeks.

Our branding has harked back to Scottish Tourist Board 1984 and we all love it! Generations X and Y will love it too! So here's the first postcard design - first 50,000 going to print soon.

Tell us why Scotland's For You on Facebook or the SFM blog or tweet us #thatswhyscotlandsforme

Seve Must Have Thought "That's Why Scotland's For Me!"

We're just putting some new touches to our Retro Scotland's For Me toolkit for 2014/15 based on the 1984 Scottish Tourist Board campaign from that period and started looking at what was taking place in 1984 in Scotland.

Well going through the archives Scotland won the old Five Nations Grand Slam and Jock Stein took the footie team to a European Championships and  it looks like Edinburgh were thinking about introducing trams

The single stand out item that placed that year for me was Severiano Ballesteros at the eighteenth on The Old Course punching the air with sheer delight chanting "That's Why Scotland's For Me. That's Why Scotland's For Me" (albeit in Spanish!)

Great memory of a great man thirty years on. Share your love of Scotland #thatswhyscotlandsforme