Coast to coast – developing a cycle route across the South of Scotland

56 Degree Insight have recently been commissioned by South of Scotland Enterprise as part of the wider consultancy team led by Tourism Marketing consultancy Bluebell Scotland to lead on the project development of a proposed Coast 2 Coast Cycle Route. The Glamis Consultancy form the third part of the team, and the 56 Degree Insight role is to undertake key consumer research to help in the planning and development of the route. 

A recent study identified cycling as one of several sectors with the greatest economic opportunity and fit with the South of Scotland region and a key recommendation was the development of “Pan-South of Scotland” experiences including a long-distance cycle route from Portpatrick in the west to Eyemouth in the east. Such a route would provide an excellent opportunity to cement the South of Scotland’s reputation as one of the outstanding road cycling destinations in the UK, building on the existing cycling infrastructure, major projects such as 7Stanes Redevelopment, Destination Tweed and the Mountain Biking Innovation Centre and Bike Park and  events such as the Tour of Britain, Enduro World Series, Raiders Gravel Festival and UCI world championships in 2023.

Bluebell Scotland, led by Neen Kelly have been appointed to project manage the development stage of the C2C Cycle Route and part of this requirement is to ensure suitably robust consumer market research is undertaken to ensure the proposed route development aligns with market demand and to undertake an economic impact assessment of the potential of the route on the region.  56 Degree Insight will be conducting extensive consumer research in the early part of 2022 to guide the development and working closely with Colin Smith from the Glamis Consultancy to measure the potential economic and wider socio-cultural impacts of the route. 

This represents another Scottish outdoor activities-based research study for the 56 Degree Insight team.  In 2020, we undertook a major survey of the potential for adventure tourism in the North East of Scotland for ONE North East and VisitAberdeenshire, and a recent project looking at the potential for the development of the Whithorn Way walking route (also working with Glamis Consultancy).  We have also just completed a major study for Wild Scotland and Sail Scotland on the potential for outdoor activity tourism in Scotland.

If you want to discuss any of these studies, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.