THE SCOTTISH Tourist Board has launched an Internet site that will offer on-line accommodation booking facilities from December 1.
The Visit Scotland site will be run alongside the two-year-old Holiday Scotland site until then.
In the meantime, the booking facilities are being tested by STB staff, who will make trial reservations with up to 50 volunteer accommodation providers over the next few months.
Up to 2,000 businesses are expected to offer on-line booking on the site by March 2000. All STB members have the opportunity to get a free listing, but they have to pay extra for a page or a mini-site with pictures and more detailed information.
The Internet scheme, named Project Ossian, has cost £3.5m to develop.
This includes help received in kind from the STB’s partners – Scottish Telecom, the Bank of Scotland and Oracle.
However, an STB spokeswoman said the system was expected to pay its own way within a few years, via the 10% commission payments from tourism businesses listed on the site.
She said the Holiday Scotland site is receiving 35,000 visitors a week, but claimed it was impossible to predict at this stage how many of those people would be prepared to book on-line.
“I think it will have a dramatic effect on how people book holidays to Scotland because it gives greater visibility to what is available,” she said.
“It gets the tourist closer to the tourism business – they can see what they can do and where they can stay. It makes it easier to plan a trip.”
She believes it will have most impact in the UK, where many people book holidays to Scotland direct, and in the US because many people use the Internet.
Meanwhile, public information kiosks with booking facilities are set to be rolled out in Scottish tourist information centres by the end of next year. The site is at www.visitscotland.com