Encouraging Whisky Tourism

Whisky Finder Mobile App

The Project.

In 2022, there were 2 million visits to Scotch Whisky distilleries, making Scotch Whisky visitor centres collectively the popular tourist attraction in Scotland. Just imagine what that does for local economies…!

But it’s not just Scotland. Although leading the way in heritage, production, exports, employment and number of distilleries – England and Ireland have been experiencing quite a boom of late.

As a self-confessed whisky obsessive who loves to visit distilleries and soak in the atmosphere and hear the stories from the people who have grown up in the area, I thought: “How can more people discover this wonderful world?” Add to this some woeful advice at a visitor centre, I realised the ‘big’ distilleries were catered for – but what about the smaller ones? All with decades of stories and whisky and all shaping a product borne of months of toil and years of rest. How do these distilleries get the footfall they so well deserve?

“Let’s build our own mobile app” was the answer.

Do people go looking for distilleries?

Yes they do. The problem is, however, that the ‘Scotch Whisky Trail’ leads to the doors of some very well known distilleries. These are ones set up for multiple tours with car parking and gift shops. But the true gems are found down smaller lanes and shout about themselves less.

For the whisky enthusiast – each one is a gem and deserves a visit – for a tour, a dram or at least a photo outside. You’ve heard of Munro-Bagging, so why not Distillery-Bagging?

Building an app

We don’t build apps, and there’s a very good reason why. It’s not straight forwards. It’s very hard work. It requires LOTS of research to get the content ready, LOTS of work to ensure it works and works well, and LOTS of understanding of APIs, Apple Store (don’t get us started…) and much, much more. Never mind promotion….

What we DO do is help people to understand what they want an app to achieve, how people may use it and what they may expect of it. We work in Figma or Adobe XD to plan the customer journey and user experience – with the understanding that a chosen partner company will help resolve the technical challenges to deliver something both engaging, useful.

Links.

Whisky Finder promo animation.

Stark Marketing

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