SITOA
Supporting and Promoting Scotland's Independent Tour Operators
SITOA
Visitors wishing to see and explore the best of Scotland can choose here from a number of excellent Scottish Independent Tour Operators. In early 2021, these small businesses decided to work together and created The Scottish Independent Tour Operator Association (SITOA).
Travelling the length and breadth of our beloved Scotland, on day tours or multi-day tours we are all passionate about offering the very best in customer service and sharing our love and knowledge of Scotland.
Our members are a varied group of expert tour operators who want to show visitors to Scotland around in all sorts of transport: luxury cars, minibuses, small coaches, bikes, boats and on foot. We are united by our love of Scotland, our commitment to high standards of customer service and the pleasure we get from sharing our country with enthusiastic visitors from all over the world.
Our guests consistently reward us with great feedback and 5* reviews on TripAdvisor, Google, Facebook and heartfelt thanks at the end of each tour.
Future aims
- Ensure our sector’s voice is heard and be a part of forward planning, economic recovery
- Sustainable tourism
- Opportunities for personal development through webinars, sharing that knowledge with our guests.
OUR CORE VALUES
Representation for all in the Industry
Quality in the Community
5 Star Scottish Experiences
LEARN MORE ABOUT SITOA
We are the Scottish Independent Tour Operator Association (SITOA) and our mission is to give representation and support to all Small and Micro companies in the Scottish Tours industry. Established in January 2021, SITOA’s 3 founding members were compelled to organise after seeing so many small, local Tour Operators consistently miss out on emergency rounds of funding in 2020.
Within weeks of getting going in 2021, SITOA built up a membership of over 120 small Tour Operators from all over Scotland and entered into emergency talks with Visit Scotland and the Scottish Tourism Alliance. The result of this was our first big win: the amending of the Visit Scotland Inbound Tour Operators Fund; a fund intended to give support to all Inbound Tour Operators in Scotland in 2021. As of writing in February 2021, we are glad to report an extra £3 million has now been added to the original Visit Scotland fund. Moreover the eligibility criteria has been significantly widened to allow many more small Tour Operators from every corner of Scotland to apply for much needed support to get through 2021.
Our members are a varied bunch of expert tour operators who want to show visitors to Scotland around in all sorts of transport: luxury cars, minibuses, coaches, bikes, boats and on foot. Some of us have staff, many don’t. Some use freelancers and others do all the tours themselves. We are united by the love for Scotland and sharing our country with kind, enthusiastic visitors from all over the world.
If you are a small Tour Operator in Scotland and plan on trading after the Pandemic, join us now (for free!) and receive the representation you never got in 2020.
Click here to get involved and learn more about how we plan to serve our members in 2021 and beyond.