NEGATIVE media coverage has “undoubtedly” put people off the North Coast 500 (NC500) – even if it doesn’t reflect reality, the route’s chair has said.
Speaking to The National, David Hughes noted the power of the media to impact on where visitors choose to stop on the 516-mile route around Scotland’s northern coastlines.
He said that Dunrobin Castle – which over the summer was named Scotland’s ultimate “hidden gem” – had seen one of its most successful years ever, but that media reports could also have the opposite effect.
“We do get commentary saying that we'd love to come, but is it really as bad as people say? Are we going to have our tyres let down?” Hughes said.
“The one thing I'd say about that is that the journalist didn't actually visit the route,” Hughes said. “They spoke to [members of groups opposed to the NC500] so they're almost inevitably going to get a negative angle.
“But you try to encourage people to come and see it. It's great, you'll get a welcome round the route, as long as you behave properly and drive properly and treat the north Highlands and the NC500 route as you would treat anywhere else really, in a proper manner.”
Reports on the NC500 often focus on irresponsible tourism – especially from people in motorhomes – with littering, dangerous driving, and disrespectful treatment of monuments high on lists of complaints.
However, Hughes said that visitor numbers had been declining since hitting a peak in the wake of the Covid pandemic – and that Police Scotland had not identified any “hot spots” for problems in the past 12-18 months.
Asked if he then struggled to marry what he read in the media about the NC500 with his experience of it in reality, Hughes said: “Yes, absolutely, in my personal experience, yes.
“I've never come across something along the route when I thought, my God, oh bloody hell, this is bad.
“In July and August, it's undoubtedly busy, Durness is busy, Ullapool is busy, but not to the extent that I'm thinking this is really bad, we need to do something about this.
“Obviously people do have that kind of experience, but it is probably magnified [in the media].”
In 2025, the NC500 will mark 10 years since its inception – and Hughes said its success had been more than anyone really expected.
“I think a lot of people didn't think it would happen,” Hughes said. “They thought, give it a go, but we're not convinced. But, as we all now know, it's happened beyond anybody's expectations, with the inherent problems that brings.”
Asked if he hoped for similar growth over the next decade, the NC500 chair raised concerns about the infrastructure on the route.
“It can only take so much and probably we don't want to be encouraging more,” he said. “We can't, even if we wanted to, we don't have the legal responsibility or any legal ability or right to be able to put such signs or improve the roads ourselves.”
Instead, the NC500 will look to promote parts of the route as destinations in their own right – rather than presenting it as an indivisible whole – in a bid to spread pressures more evenly.
“The issue now is the volume of visitors – and the campervans and motorhomes primarily,” he said. “What do we do to – not reduce that number – but actually to make sure that those who come drive responsibly and take the time [to explore off the main route].
“We've been trying to slow people down. Do the route, but don't do it all in one go. Do the west coast in one visit, come back the following year, do the north.”
As well as spreading tourism around the route, the NC500 has been working to extend the season and promote visiting outwith the summer months. However, Hughes said this was a “double-edged sword”.
“It's now within a six-month season – and this is where we're damned if we do, we're damned if we don't.
“If we seem to be promoting year-long tourism, you can imagine the reaction in some quarters to that. ‘Winter is the only time of peace we get here, don't get the tourists here in winter as well’.
“It's a double-edged sword, but the season has expanded, there’s no doubt about that.”
