Polishing up Shetland’s self-image

A CIVIC pride campaign to promote Shetland around the globe should focus on its unrivalled lifestyle, according to the former Lord Provost of Glasgow.

Businessman Michael Kelly was in Shetland this week for the second time since the start of the year to muster support for his ideas.

He has been invited via Busta House Hotel proprietor Veronica Rocks as part her ambition to improve the isles’ self-image.

Kelly is credited to have been instrumental in setting up the ‘Glasgow’s Miles Better’ campaign in the 1980s, which played an important role in the city’s renaissance.

A former director of Celtic Football Club, Kelly said the isles had a lot to offer but a more joint joined up campaign was needed to get the message across.

He said he had so far received a support from local agencies and, major businesses as well as local entrepreneurs who were all keen to get involved.

Updating a local audience at the Shetland Museum and Archives on Thursday afternoon, Kelly said this was about changing people’s views on what Shetland was all about.

Speaking to Shetland News earlier in the day, Kelly said Shetland needed such a campaign because it didn’t have one.

“Shetland is going to be able to market itself on lifestyle, by looking at health, education, time that can be spent with the family, leisure and recreation activities, as well as looking at happiness generally.

“To set Shetland on a very clear path we need to increase its population to more than 30,000 over a ten year period, and we need to find out what people outwith Shetland want of the isles, and then find out if we have got that here and if we could offer it to them.

“It seems to me that a lot of people are working away independently for the good of Shetland but they are not working together. So, this is about pulling these things together.

“From my experience from around the world, even big cities feel they need that kind of promotion,” he said.