Bottling Scotland, drinking Scotland:Scotland's future, the whisky industry and leisure, tourism and public-health policy

Abstract

Single-malt whisky is the product of over one hundred distilleries across Scotland, and is the subject of a number of claims about its status as an 'authentic' Scottish drink. The whisky industry in Scotland argues that it creates significant amounts of revenue for Scotland and the United Kingdom -not just in sales of single-malt whiskies and blended whiskies, but also from the contribution of whisky tourism. As such, Scottish policy-makers in tourism and local regeneration have used whisky both as an attraction to market to visitors to the country, and a vehicle for creating jobs. In this paper, the whisky industry and related whisky tourism industry in Scotland is explored alongside an analysis of tourist and local regeneration policies and strategies that explicitly nurture the notion that whisky is a necessary part of Scottish identity. I will then contrast this with policies on leisure that identify alcohol drinking as problematic, and argue that the whisky industry has worked to convince its public sector supporters that drinking single-malt whiskies in distillery visitor centres is harmless, while signing up to campaigns to moderate drinking in the wider Scottish public.

Living with the consequences of policy decisions: reactions to student lifestyles in the neighbourhood

“…In Cohen's model the media wield power through the ability to shape the moral discourse, even if there are more distant hegemonic forces (Spracklen, 2014). Despite the absence of media power, the different protagonists here still protest their powerlessness.…”

“…Cohen suggests that the moral outrage may not only be directed at these scapegoats, but also at the agencies ultimately responsible. However, as Spracklen (2014) points out, such agencies (the universities and sometimes the city council) are themselves subject to more distant levers of power.…”

Tourists' alcoholic beverage consumption and re-visit intention: A conceptual paper

“…Few studies (e.g. Tanaka, 2010;Spracklen, 2011Spracklen, , 2014Dansac, Gonzales, 2014;Stoffelen, 2016;Hurl et al, 2016;Iijima et al, 2016;Sato, Kohasa, 2017) have examined Whisky, Tequila, Rum and Sake as development factors for regional branding and tourism. However, the studies related to local alcoholic beverage tourism are further limited.…”

“…Tourism products or tourist practices have been the focus of research in the area of satisfaction, such as hotels (Kandampully, Suhartanto, 2003), cruises (Qu, Ping, 1999), theme parks (Kao et al, 2008) and tour guides (Zhang, Chow 2004). Likewise there are studies in beverage tourism in areas such as Wine tourism (Kaddi, 2015;Columbini, 2015;Sigala, 2019, Connolly, 2019, Kim et al, 2019, Beer Tourism (Baran, 2017;Manis et al, 2020), Tequila tourism , Whisky tourism (Stoffelen, 2016;Spracklen, 2011Spracklen, , 2014. However, studies explicitly designed to address the satisfaction of tourists with the experience of the food and beverage consumption and their behavioural intentions are minimal (Correia et al, 2008).…”