Plan for tourist information centres to reopen

VisitScotland has announced its plan for the reopening of its 26 iCentres by the end of August following a four-month closure due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The first four sites in Edinburgh, Balloch, Aviemore, and Jedburgh have opened today (Monday) the second phase will begin on July 27th with the reopening of sites in Oban, St Andrews, Pitlochry, Portree and Ullapool.

The remaining sites will be opened on a rolling basis throughout August.

The reopened iCentres will initially only offer an information service to visitors with the hope of reintroducing ticketing, accommodation booking and retail as soon as safe to do so.

Manuela Calchini, Head of Information at VisitScotland said: “Our iCentre staff have been working to get the centres reopened and are looking forward to being able to help visitors with face to face enquiries for the first time in four months.

“The information services never really closed however, and I’d like to pay tribute to the team for all its hard work in getting to this point.”

“Our iCentres are a significant part of the community and we understand that there will be a desire to open them as soon as possible – we share that desire and want to support the tourism industry and communities as we come out of lockdown, however the safety of our staff and visitors is paramount.”   