Locally Led Destination Development

The South of Scotland Destination Alliance (SSDA) is the destination management and marketing organisation for the Scottish Borders and Dumfries and Galloway.Run by local businesses for local businesses, it exists to support, develop and represent responsible tourism. And it’s having a big impact!United we stand, divided we fallPartnership and collaboration are everything. Destinations succeed when they unite:• Inspiring people to visit through coordinated, strategic marketing campaigns;• providing a single point of clear, accurate visitor information;• having a single voice for our sector which is loud and proud; and• having a single Responsible Tourism Strategy which everyone is behind.This is what the SSDA does.Judge us by the numbersWe’re proud of the positive, demonstrable impact we’re having supporting responsible tourism. The numbers speak for themselves:The latest independent STEAM figures, show the South of Scotland: grew its visitor economy by 20% last year, increasing by £150m, to £911m; created 14% more jobs, with 15,652 people now employed in tourism; increased visitor numbers by 26%, to over 5 million.We hit our 2025 Covid recovery targets (having a £750m visitor economy supporting 14,000 jobs) 2.5 years early.For the first time ever, the South of Scotland won more national Thistle Awards than any other part of Scotland – as many as the previous 17 years put together!SSDA is supported by South of Scotland Enterprise Agency, VisitScotland, Dumfries and Galloway Council and Scottish Borders Council and also received funding from the former South of Scotland Enterprise Partnership.