Dunvegan and District Community Council launched a new campaign during 2024 to help promote sustainable tourism on Skye and to ensure visiting drivers know how to drive safely on the island’s single-track roads.

Mandy Boswell was the driving force behind the campaign, which has involved Skye Community Councils and NFU Mutual providing funding for 100 ‘wrap’ signs to be installed across the island. Mandy had seen similar signs while on holiday on other Scottish islands and brought the idea back to Skye with her.

Police Scotland in Portree also provided invaluable support for the project, liaising with colleagues on other islands where similar signs have already been installed.

The signs include useful information for motorists, with advice on how to use passing places, how to ensure they are not damaging the natural environment and a reminder that driving on the left still matters on single track roads!

Mandy said:

“Communities on Skye need tourism as it is the island’s biggest economic driver, but residents often feel like they have been forgotten and that tourists are more important than local people. This initiative is designed to address some of those problems by encouraging responsible tourism, with a view to repairing the relationship between islanders and visitors.

“We worked hard to make sure the signs are easy for people from outside the UK to understand as well, whether that is those for whom English is a second language or those who use different words for things like “passing place” and “overtaking.

“I do feel as though driving on the island has improved since the signs were installed and there have been less issues reported anecdotally. Often locals just want to know that something is being done to try and address a problem, and this has certainly been the case with our information signs.”

Dunvegan and District Community Council have also been working to set up a website for tourists, Skye.scot, which provides more information and advice for visitors to the island. All the wrap signs include a QR code which takes you direct to the Skye.scot website.

“There is no commercial advertising on the website, so we are hoping to encourage tourist businesses of all sizes to link to Skye.scot on their own pages, which will help us get the message out as widely as possible. In addition, we really want to get a multilingual version of Skye.scot up and running to ensure we meet the needs of visitors who maybe only speak a few words of English or just enough to get by.”

Locals have helped to add other useful information to the site, such as websites and apps that help visitors plan their journeys, including public transport options on the island, and important information about wild camping and where to find facilities such as EV charging points and public toilets.

Online tourist help and information is not the only digital project that Dunvegan and District Community Council are working on at the moment. They are working with other Community Councils on Skye to expand the use of the skye.scot website to help spread the word about their activities and meetings.