The Badenoch Great Place Project
(BGPP) has been working to build the rich cultural heritage of Badenoch into a compelling visitor experience in the Cairngorms National Park. The project is now entering its final stages and much work has been ongoing behind the scenes to develop a self-guided tourism offering that draws on the tangible and intangible heritage of the area and presents it in modern and innovative ways.Since the start of the project in April 2018, work has focused on assessing Badenoch’s cultural heritage sites in order to compile a Cultural Heritage Interpretation and Marketing Strategy for the area, including key themes which are able to communicate the wealth of stories that can be told about the Badenoch landscape and its people. This was used to develop and test a Tourist Route which has since evolved into a significant number of walking, cycling and driving itineraries for visitors to follow to learn more about Badenoch’s rich heritage offering. A brand and logo Badenoch The Storylands emerged from all of this work, which has been taken forward with all product development since.In 2020, drawing on all of this research and preparation, the ways in which a visitor can access Badenoch’s cultural heritage have been developed and refined into the project website https://badenochstorylands.com, the draft stage of a mobile Badenoch Storylands App, the creation of maps and other materials to promote access to the heritage, together with storytelling and music content plus Augmented Reality images of the region’s key sites. All of these inputs will come together to form a suite of digital and published resources that it is hoped will excite and encourage people to come to the area, stay a while and learn more about this less well known part of the Scottish Highlands and the Cairngorms National Park.
