One of Scotland’s quirkiest holiday lets gained mainstream coverage across the USA last weekend, as Wigtown Festival Company’s Open Book was featured on the CBS Saturday Morning Show.
The second-hand bookshop in Scotland’s Book Town is run by visiting book-lovers as a self-catering holiday. Bibliophiles from all around the world take it in turns to run the shop, which is listed on Airbnb, the holiday rentals website. It has proved so popular that the waiting list now stretches for 3 years – you have to wait until 2021 if you want to book it.
Now the unique holiday experience is set to attract even more interest from across the USA, as the dream of running a Scottish bookstore goes global. The CBS Saturday Morning Show broadcasts to millions of viewers across America as well as being screened in other English-speaking countries around the world. The coverage follows the Open Book’s recent appearance on a documentary on South Korean television as well as on BBC1’s BBC Breakfast Show
Wigtown Festival Company, which set up the Open Book as part of its Cultural Tourism project has been thrilled with the attention it has created for Scotland’s Book Town. Festival Company Trustee, Finn McCreath, said it was exactly the kind of publicity they had dreamt of to encourage more overseas tourists to come to Scotland and spend time immersed in its rich literary heritage.
He said: “To have a feature on prime-time television across the USA is fantastic, and we look forward to welcoming more American tourists here as a result. It will be of direct benefit to the country as a whole, as visitors will tend to spend a week in Wigtown and then go on a tour of Scotland.”
Wigtown Festival Company’s Cultural Tourism Officer, scriptwriter Jessica Fox, who features in the CBS News feature, says that the idea of running one’s own bookshop in a beautiful Scottish town is a dream that many people hold in their hearts.
She said: “It’s the sense of being surrounded by books, with all the stories they have to tell – coupled with the immersion in a friendly, close-knit community – that makes it so memorable. The books are really just the catalyst for interesting conversations with new acquaintances – something that is becoming quite rare in this digital age. Some guests have returned for another visit, while others have actually sold up and moved to Wigtown.”
Paul Bush OBE, VisitScotland’s Director of Events, said: “The Wigtown Book Festival is one of the most iconic literary festivals in the UK and it is fantastic the Wigtown Festival Company’s Open Book project continues to grab the imagination of people around the world, kindling a desire to visit Scotland and immerse themselves in our rich literary heritage.”
The Festival Company’s Cultural Tourism project, which is part-funded by the Scotland’s Rural Development Programme’s LEADER scheme is aimed at boosting tourism to Wigtown throughout the year, rather than just during the 10 days of its flagship Wigtown Book Festival.
- Its next programme is the Big Bang Weekend on 2-4 February, which will bring the top experts on astrophysics, astrobiology and artificial intelligence together to debate life in outer space and how the latest scientific discoveries are changing the forms of alien life we might expect to find in distant galaxies and even amongst us here on Earth. www.wigtownbookfestival.com.
