Dunfermline

1. Introduction

The town of Dunfermline is located 3 miles from the shore of the Firth of Forth in the Kingdom of Fife. Dunfermline with population of 39,229 is a base for the electronics and engineering industries with major employers HBOS (Halifax Bank of Scotland), BSkyB and FMC Technologies (Scottisch towns, 2004).

Dunfermline – the ancient royal capital of Scotland belongs with its history to the most important cities of Scotland. The historical heritage of the town includes Abbey Church which is the burial place of Robert the Bruce and other eleven Scottish kings and queens.

Besides other, the town is a birthplace of philanthropist Andrew Carnegie who after immigrating to America supported Dunfermline greatly through the establishment of the Carnegie Trust that funded building of the institutions such Carnegie Libraries, Carnegie Hall and development of Pittencrieff Park (Visitscotland, 2006). The other town centre attractions include the Carnegie Theatre, the Carnegie Sports Centre, the Andrew Carnegie Birthplace Museum, Abbot House Museum and St Margaret’s Cave.

However, in spite of its heritage, the town of Dunfermline as well as the entire area of Kingdom of Fife does not seem to be utilizing and benefiting from its tourism potential.

A need for enhancing the cultural and heritage tourism offering across Fife particularly in Dunfermline and Kirkcaldy have been recognized by the Fife council. The Scottish Executive’s “Tourism Framework for Change” provides a context for the development of the Fife Tourism Strategy. Strengthening of Dunfermline’s heritage is required in order to boost its tourism offering, retail and leisure markets and to reinforce linkages with local communities, particularly from a presentation and marketing point of view (Fife Council, 2006).

The town is currently going through the developing and rejuvenating stage that strives to enhance the current services and facilities and at the same time to attract more tourists. The opening of a shopping centre in April 2008 is expected to provide with new job opportunities. The accessibility of the town will be supported by the opening of the new bus station in august 2008.

In addition, the pedestrian access, new street lighting, seating and additional planting will be improved through the project designed by Environmental Consultants and funded by Fife Council's Development Services that has been also approved by Historic Scotland as a part of the Southern Gateway programme which improves the entrances to Dunfermline (Fife Council, 2008).

In terms of cultural development, the town’s theatre and concert hall – Alhambra that is at the moment under development is supposed to attract international artists and performers (The Dunfermline Guide, 2008).

Nevertheless, Dunfermline’ vicinity to popular Scottish tourism destinations as Edinburgh and St. Andrews calls for unique tourism product in order to be capable to compete with existing competitive destination regarding to quality of tourism products.

The aim of this portfolio is to identify the opportunities and problems of the town Dunfermline in terms of tourism development via primary and secondary research analysed with help of SWOT analysis and to provide with a supportive solution focusing on the sustainability.

Moreover, it presents the inventory and tourism audit of the town that will classify and evaluate current natural, cultural and historical heritage as well as the accommodation and catering sector.

2. Inventory and Tourism resource audit

Godfrey et al. (2000) notes that tourism resources of the destination are the core assets that form tourism attractiveness of the destination and points out that those resources stand for the supply side and thus, need to match with the demand side of the market in order to develop a �wanted’ tourism destination.

Moreover, the key aim of the audit is to produce an inclusive resource list which will eventually provide with the establishment of a tourism development strategy and assure more successful sustainable tourism destination.

It is of high importance to understand the resources available, the way they fit together and what the destination could practically offer to potential tourists.

There is a trivial attention dedicated to the assessment of tourism potential and moreover, it tends to be overtaken by the advertising and promotion (Middleton et al. 1998).

Godfery et al. (2000 points out that resources available are of different character that include components of nature and man-made, festivals and events,