Those holiday makers planning to take a city break somewhere in Scotland this year can now view a comprehensive guide to help them plan their holiday.

The holiday guide details all the food and drink festivals being held across the country during 2009.

VisitScotland, the official website of Scotland’s national tourism organisation is a must for Scottish tourists. Its list of events include the ‘Appetite for Ayrshire and Arran’ taking place in April, combining a number of exciting showcase events which will be light on the pocket due to fixed price menus and special promotional offers.

The Scottish Crannog Centre in Kenmore, Perthshire is holding the Celtic Food and Drink Festival on 26th April. The festival will have a retrospective theme and there will be traditional Scottish food from all over the country that can be tasted. Cooking demonstrations are being held throughout the event using local dairy products, meats and a good helping of Scottish beverages.

The Paisley Beer Festival 2009 will be held at Paisley Town Hall between 29th April and 2nd May. This event will allow holiday makers and locals to sample beers from local breweries.

Bmi Regional will be launching new flight services to city break travellers wanting to visit Aberdeen. The new flights will start to depart from Birmingham Airport in March.

From 29th March, Bmi Regional will be operating and servicing 3 daily scheduled flights from the West Midlands to the North Eastern part of Scotland, which will mean that they will offer a higher frequency on the route than any competitor.

The service is being taken over from one of its subsidiary companies, bmibaby. Bmi Regional will boost the number of routes in order to meet the demands of city break passengers wanting to visit Scotland.

The route will be the airline’s first service out of Birmingham and it is set to offer much in the way of flexibility and choice via the variety of its day return flight options.

Bmi Regional’s Commercial Director, Peter Kenworthy, was part of the recent decision to extend the flight service to include a route from Birmingham to Aberdeen. He commented: ‘We recognise the need for a more frequent schedule and we expect the route to be popular with both business and leisure travellers. The new service will also provide connectivity at Aberdeen to Bmi and Star Alliance flights to Scandinavia.’

Bmi regional, which claims to be the UK’s most punctual airline, also offers flights from airports including Leeds Bradford, Manchester, Edinburgh and Glasgow.

A joint initiative has been announced between the whisky company The Famous Grouse and the tourist organisation VisitScotland.  Together, they are inviting visitors from anywhere in the world to host Burns Night on the 25th January next year.

The Homecoming Scotland 2009 initiative will mark the 250th anniversary of Robert Burns’ birth, and VisitScotland hopes that a record number of participants across the world will take part in the Burns Supper Celebrations.

Those wishing to take part are requested to register their activities on the new website for Burns Supper 2009 to help the world record for the number of worldwide celebrations.

Paul Bush OBE, chief operating officer of EventScotland, said:

‘We are delighted to launch the world famous Burns Supper Celebration with The Famous Grouse and encourage everyone around the world, whatever they are doing for Burns Night, to join in by registering on the site.  We hope to hear of a vast array of different celebrations including the largest ever Burns supper and perhaps the highest, such as one held on the top of Mount Aconcagua in Argentina last year.’

Burns Night in January will start Homecoming Scotland, which is a full year’s programme of parties, festivals, concerts and many other events leading up to the 30th November, celebrating St Andrews Day.

The city of Edinburgh was described as

‘a sight to behold during the festive season’

by VisitScotland earlier this week as it urged tourist to visit the city over the Christmas period, as the capital of Scotland will be illuminated by a winter wonderland initiative.

A spokesperson for the VisitScotland ‘winter white’ campaign, Gillian Thomson, said:

“Edinburgh has so much to offer all through the year but through the festive period it really provides both a unique view of Scotland and an opportunity to see one of Europe’s most beautiful cities at its very best.”

There are many highlights and attractions being put on in Edinburgh for Christmas, including a range of markets at Princes Street Gardens and a German fair, which will eb selling food, gifts and wine.

The Christmas attractions will officially open on the 27th November, which is known as ‘Edinburgh’s Christmas Light Night’.

In addition, there will be a skating show outdoors on a special ice rink to start the evening before the lights get switched on.

According to VisitScotland, their 2007-2008 winter tourism campaign for Scotland has proved a success, as figures show it contributed around £46 million to Scotland’s economy.

The promotion began in November 2007 and ran until March 2008, aimed primarily at the UK tourist maker.

The campaign was designed to highlight a number of the best things to do and to see in Scotland over the winter period and proved memorable for many of those who saw the promotion.

A survey by TNS discovered that half of those surveyed remembered seeing at least one section of the campaign and approximately 55 per cent of respondents who remembered seeing the promotion then went on to book a holiday to Scotland.

Suzanne Casey of VisitScotland said: ‘This has proved to be a fantastic campaign during the traditionally quieter months and shows how successful Scottish tourism can be when we work closely together.  Tackling the seasons by offering quality accommodation deals or lengthening winter opening hours, as well as encouraging investment from the private sector, have been identified as two of the five key drivers in achieving the shared growth ambition – to increase tourism revenues by 50% by 2015.”

The next winter tourism campaign for Scotland for the 2008-2009 period is due to start in October and for those looking for cheap holidays in the current economic climate, Scotland could be a great place for UK holidaymakers.

Edinburgh has launched its first ever green travel guide this month, with several eco-friendly highlights included, such as iPod tours, a carbon neutral hostel and even organic porridge.

The guide is the latest of a series of city guides focusing primarily on eco-friendly accommodation, attractions and restaurants in predominantly backpacker cities worldwide.

Ian Everett, editor of Jamble Magazine, the publisher of the guide, said ” Edinburgh is aiming to be Europe’s most sustainable city by 2015, and as tourism is such a huge industry in Scotland we were surprised to find that there’s very little information out there on how visitors to the city can reduce their environmental impact; so that’s why we created this travel guide.  Travelling green isn’t always about staying in yurts and tipis, and these guides prove that city breaks can be eco-friendly too.”

For those looking for cheap holidays, a city break in the UK might be a good idea so why not try a green holiday?

Other attractions from the guide include solar powered otter enclosures in Edinburgh Zoo, MP3 downloadable audio walking tours and an organic porridge bar, which appears at weekly Edinburgh Farmers Market each Saturday.

Green hostels are also included, such as the carbon neutral High Street Hostel which sources electricity from solar power and wind farms, as well as planting trees in a 75 hectare forest to offset any other carbon emissions.

Glasgow in Scotland has officially been awarded the status of being a Unesco City of Music.

The title was accepted earlier this week by Bob Winter, Glasgow’s Lord Provost.  It was presented at a ceremonial lunch by the director general of Unesco, Koichiro Matsuura.

Almost twenty years ago, the city of Glasgow held the title of European capital of culture.

Mr Winter said:

“It is wonderful to be accepting the Unesco City of Music Award on behalf of Glasgow.  I am thrilled that Glasgow’s rich and varied musical heritage has been recognised by Unesco. We embrace the award on behalf of our talented musicians and composers whose work has contributed to our great city being given the permanent prestige of being a City of Music.”

There are many musical venues in Glasgow such as the Barrowland Ballroom and the Royal Concert Hall.  In the average week there are around 127 musical events.

Unesco has recognised many cities in its Creative Cities network for their contribution and promotion of literature, music, arts and many other fields.  Other cities in the Unesco Creative Cities network include Montreal, Seville, Buenos Aires and Berlin.

Despite the credit crunch and current economic climate, it seems that Scottish travellers have not been put off their overseas travel.

Figures show that overseas flights passengers from Aberdeen increased by 1.3% year on year in June.

Amongst the most popular destinations were Paris, Amsterdam and Stavanger.  The greatest growth in figures were those passengers travelling to Barcelona.

In total, more than 302,000 passengers travelled through Aberdeen airport in June.  This was a slight frop of 1.9% compared to June 2007, it still brought the total traffic for 2008 to date to 1.6 million passengers, an increase on the year to date figures from 2007.

Managing Director of Aberdeen Airport, Kevin Brown, said:

“With the summer schedule well underway, I am very pleased to see an increasing number of passengers now choosing to fly from their local airport to some of Europe’s most popular sunshine destinations.  The trend at Aberdeen is towards continued growth, particularly in the international market.”

Flights from Aberdeen airport are available with airlines suc as bmi, SAS and Flybe and travel to many destinations including Esbjerg, Berlin and Copenhagen.

In 2009, Scotland will celebrate its first ever ‘homecoming year’, marking the 250th anniversary of the Scottish poet’s birth, Robert Burns.

On Monday 16th June, the programme of events was unveiled at Edinburgh Castle.  The plan includes Scottish clan gatherings, contemporary art exhibitions and more.

Burns Night weekend of the 24th - 25th January will kickstart the celebrations with parties across the country, including the birthplace of Burns, Ayrshire.

Glasgow will be hosting the Celtic Connections festival for almost a month from 24th January to 1st February, celebrating Burn’s influence on the celtic music.

A huge art exhibition will be at Glasgow’s Mitchell Library from April to September, including old and new artists.

The project director for Homecoming Scotland, Marie Christie, said the programme was the beginning of many more events and celebrations to come, and said:

“‘We think there is something in the programme for everyone and we hope Scots, and those who love Scotland, at home and abroad will join the celebrations in 2009.”

If you’re looking for a cheap holiday or short break, you could do a lot worse than visiting the historic city of Edinburgh.

Overlooking the city is the dominant figure of Edinburgh Castle, steeped in history dating back to the eleventh century, situated on Castle Rock.  The castle actually sits on an extinct volcano!

Back in the eleventh century, the castle was the royal residence of Queen Margaret and King Malcolm Canmore.  Reportedly, Queen Margaret built St Margarets Chapel when she first moved to the castle and the Chapel is one of the oldest roofed buildings in Scotland. (more…)