Over the course of a decade, a design programme enabled a small distillery in Scotland to effectively leverage the commercial potential of its site and deliver a premium brand experience through visitor tours. Visitor numbers soared 117% from 38,000 to 82,000 in that period and spend per head jumped 79% from £21.36 to £38.57.
Glengoyne had offered tours for many years, but with a small, unextendible footprint and a working distillery onsite, the experience for visitors and staff was cumbersome. To enhance visitor flow through the site, the tour process was reviewed in 2008 and the success of that design investment and collaboration with Contagious led onto the more expansive programme.
Developed and implemented incrementally across a ten-year period, with the briefs for each stage rooted in the tangible results of preceding phases, a design focus on quality, pace and flow enhanced the entire visitor experience. By spreading wider into redesigned spaces onsite, the impact of the tours on production was also eased. Glengoyne’s rise in visitor numbers is over double the national rise of 56% since 2010 and in 2019 it was cited as the best tour in Scotland by The Herald.
