Tourism Award

Bob Downie

In 2003 the former Royal Yacht Britannia was the seventh most popular Edinburgh attraction, with more than 310,000 visitors, and the numbers have carried on rising. Statistics from VisitScotland show an encouraging trend in what is a very well run tourist attraction. With
Bob Downie at the helm the yacht now works 24/7, with tourists during the day and corporate guests in the evening.

It could have all been very different. The Britannia's successful future was by no means assured when on 11 December 1997 it was decommissioned. Television viewers were treated to the rare and sad spectacle of the Queen in tears as the ship that had served the Royal Family for 44 years on 986 official voyages was put out to pasture.

Four months later, after intense competition from cities around the UK, the Government announced that Edinburgh had won the bid to become Britannia's new home. She is now owned by the Royal Yacht Britannia Trust, a charitable organisation which has the sole function of maintaining Britannia in keeping with her former role.

As chief executive, Downie has turned the Britannia into a successful tourist destination which opened in October 1998. His achievement has also been to attract a continuous stream of leisure and business tourists to a moored ship in what was a run-down and remote part of Edinburgh, thus helping to regenerate the Leith area.

When voting for the Catey Tourism Award 2005 all the judges agreed that Downie and the Britannia had persuaded tourists both from the UK and abroad to spend their money in Edinburgh, helped raise the profile of British hospitality and improved standards and professionalism in the industry.

The number of corporate events hosted on the ship increased by 40% in 2004 compared with the previous year. The yacht has built an enviable reputation, with regular clients such as IBM, Ford and the Institute of Directors. Along the way the yacht has picked up a number of awards, including the prestigious title of the "Most Excellent Venue in the UK 2004" by Conde Nast Johansens.

One of the Catey judges, Andrew Main, said: "Downie has certainly helped develop domestic tourism. The Britannia has added to the attractiveness of Scotland as a destination."

Another judge even claimed that converting Scottish republicans into royalists by attracting them to the yacht was a feat in itself. Roy Ackerman summed up the judges' feelings when he said: "The decommissioning of the Britannia was terribly sad. Instead, Downie and his team have turned it into this fabulous venue in an up-and-coming area of Edinburgh. It's a seamless merging of leisure and business tourism which makes the yacht a 24-hour-a-day attraction. It's also a riches to rags to riches story."

The Judges

• Roy Ackerman, chairman, Tadema Studios
• Bob Cotton, chief executive, British Hospitality Association
• Martin King, director of tourism, the Mersey Partnership
• Philip Long, principal lecturer in tourism management, Sheffield Hallam University
• Angela Shanley, chairman, UKinbound

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