By John Knox
Spare a thought for the 18-strong crew of Edinburgh City Council’s ocean-going yacht now thrashing their way across the Pacific and soon to make land at San Francisco. You didn’t know Edinburgh has a yacht? Well, it is not exactly for the use of councillors and officials, but the city is sponsoring one of the ten entries in this year’s Clipper Round the World yacht race.
Edinburgh Inspiring Capital, a 68ft racing machine, is currently in seventh place, facing stiff competition from similar boats sponsored by other cities in Australia, Singapore, China, America, Finland, the Netherlands, England and Ireland. As well as working their passage, the crews – all amateurs, apart from the skipper – pay for the privilege of ocean racing. But Edinburgh City Council is paying £50,000 towards the cost.
Why? Because it is part of the city’s promotions budget. The yachts call into 14 important ports as they make their way around the world and fly the flag for their home cities. In San Francisco, for instance, the Edinburgh crew will attend a reception for business and tourism chiefs telling them what Edinburgh has to offer. The city estimates the press coverage alone for the round-the-world trip is worth £10 million.
Promoting your city is part of the job-creation game these days. Edinburgh does it in spectacular style with the summer arts festivals. Glasgow will do it in even more spectacular style with the Commonwealth Games in 2014 – though it too had a turn of the yacht in 2006. Dundee does it with Captain Scott’s ship, Discovery. Aberdeen is making a splash with its controversial “granite web” plans for Union Terrace Gardens.
The new cities are getting in on the act, too. Inverness staged the Scottish Open golf championship at Castle Stuart last year. Stirling has restored its Renaissance palace. And Perth, celebrating its return to city status this year, is only a few miles away from the venue for the 2014 Ryder Cup.
Yachts, golf, games and arts are all very well, but I would have thought that the best way to promote your city is through its football team. Barcelona does it so well, as does Madrid – incidentally, both are co-operatively owned by their fans and citizens. In England, there are city teams in Coventry, Southampton, Newcastle etc. In Scotland, Kilmarnock have just won the League Cup and we have Stirling, Dunfermline, Alloa, Brechin and others. Inverness embarked on this course in 1994, with the merger of its two rival teams, forming Inverness Caledonian Thistle.
Aberdeen can unite around the Dons. Dundee would surely benefit from a merger of the United and Dundee clubs. Both Edinburgh clubs are struggling financially and could field one really strong united team. As for Glasgow, it looks like it will only have one Premier League club left by the end of the next financial year. Maybe it is time to end the sectarianism and the uppy/downy rivalry in our cities and have each city uniting behind one team, owned by – or at least sponsored by – the city council.
It is estimated that 40 million people will catch a glimpse of Edinburgh’s yacht on their TV screens as it sails around the world, not to mention it as talking point at many a business meeting. A city’s football team, if successful, can attract ten times that – Barcelona attract a live TV audience of 400 million for big matches.
They are different audiences, perhaps, but it is important for a city’s promotional material to reach tourists as well as business people. And it is important, too, to promote a city to its own citizens, to give them pride in their own teams, whether they kick a ball, perform on the track or stage, or stand on the windswept deck of a yacht in the middle of the Pacific.
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