Rachel recently attended Business Angus’ Open Ready Roadshow. This was an opportunity for businesses and organisations throughout Angus and the surrounding area to understand how they could benefit from the 147th Open coming to Carnoustie and how they could connect with each other to promote the incredible brand of Carnoustie and Angus.
It was enlightening to see the huge range of roles connected to The Open and the ways in which local businesses will continue to benefit after The Open has moved on to its next destination. Currently golf is estimated to bring £19.6million into the Angus economy and supports 868 jobs, that’s without a tournament. Jobs range from the green keepers who ensure Angus’ courses are some of the best in the world, the chefs and wait staff in the many hotels, restaurants and bars where the golfers refresh themselves, the farmers who produce the local food and drink Angus is renowned for, the drivers who get the golfers from place to place, accountants who support all the other local businesses and so many more jobs that benefit from golf tourism. The number of these jobs will increase when Carnoustie receives recognition on a global scale, with images of Carnoustie and Angus transmitted to 500 million people. And of those visitors who are lucky enough to attend The Open 60% say they plan to return. Tourism and hospitality are key industries to Scotland’s economy and are continuing to grow. They have the potential to be life-long careers for young people, that could take them all over the world and offer a huge number of opportunities and progression pathways.
The Open tournament itself is a great example of where tourism and hospitality work can take you. The R&A stated “Hospitality is a major part of global sporting events.” The Open also illustrates the connected nature of the modern working world. There will be 6000 people working at the 147th Open. Every role from administrators to social media managers, bar staff to wardens, camera operators to physical therapists. The number of career options available to young people continues to grow, as do the places and opportunities your skills and qualifications can take you and the types of people you will connect and work with. Whatever career path or geographical location a young person takes, soft skills will be invaluable and allow them to flourish and progress. These skills are best gained through experience; work experience, part-time jobs, volunteering and working on industry style (often team) challenges within the school curriculum.
Once of the key messages from the evening from Business Angus and the R&A was that this will be a very digital event. People will watch the golf on mobile devices just as much as they will on TV’s. People will follow the event on social media, and they will research the course, the hotels, places to eat, sights to see and more on a variety of platforms. Carnoustie will be trending.
In anticipation of this Business Angus, in association with Visit Angus and Visit Scotland, are putting on a number of workshops to help local businesses/organisation create/develop their on-line presence. The digital focus on Carnoustie, Angus and Scotland is too good to be missed for businesses. If any local business is looking for ongoing support with their social media/digital presence DYW Dundee & Angus may be able to help. Previously we helped develop a social media training project between Greenhillock Glamping and St John’s secondary school. St John’s pupils tailored their research to Greenhillocks needs and then delivered a face-to-face training session on how to create specific social media accounts and how to effectively use them. You can find the full details of the project here. If this is something you feel your business would benefit from, please don’t hesitate to get in contact with the DYW team.
The DYW Dundee & Angus team is here to support local young people and local businesses engage. If you have any questions, or anything we can help with, let us know.