Tourism across the Falkirk area is in line for a top Scottish award following Falkirk Council’s shortlisting in the 2016/17 Scottish Thistle Awards for their Visit Falkirk activity recently.

Visit Falkirk is a partnership involving Falkirk Council, Falkirk Community Trust, Scottish Canals, Falkirk Delivers and a number of tourism businesses across the local area.

The awards will be announced in Edinburgh on 10th November 2017.

The awards are the highest recognition for tourism related activities in Scotland with the Council shortlisted as a Central, Fife and Tayside finalist in the ‘Working Together for Tourism’ category. The category ‘celebrates partnerships, collaborations and team working’ and is for ‘new and innovative campaigns’.

Councillor Adrian Mahoney, Falkirk Council’s spokesperson for Culture, leisure and Tourism said: “These awards are the ‘Oscars’ of Scottish tourism and represent the best in all areas of promoting this area and across the whole of Scotland.

 “We’re competing amongst some of the biggest names but we’re hopeful that our efforts to promote the Falkirk area as a tourism destination will not go unnoticed.

 “The shortlisting highlighted the need to demonstrate a clear strategy to develop an experience that can be measured by ‘warmth of welcome’ and we think that the Visit Falkirk partnership has really delivered this.”

The Visit Falkirk team join colleagues from The Helix who are shortlisted in the best visitor attraction category.

715 businesses and organisations have entered the awards with the shortlist being decided upon by a panel of industry experts with winners of the Regional Finals being put forward for the national awards in March 2017.