Scottish government contributes to Homecoming project

An important event in Scotland’s tourism initiative, Highland Year of Homecoming, has received a £60,000 boost from the government.

A conference will be held as part of the wide-ranging Homecoming Scotland 2009 project, with speakers from around the world featured. In all, the festival spans 10 months of events celebrating all things Scottish, and coincides with national poet Robert Burns’s 250th anniversary.

Fiona Hampton, of Highland Homecoming, commented that the conference had attracted a number of high-calibre speakers. Officials are hopeful that Homecoming will see thousands of expatriates return to Scotland from around the world, when the project launches in 2009.

The festival begins on Burns Night, on 25 January, nationally, and it will continue on until the St Andrew’s Day celebrations on 30 November.

Events have been organised around five themes that include Robert Burns, golf, great Scottish minds and innovations, Scottish culture and heritage and whisky.

A celebration of Burns’s songs will be held at the Clyde Auditorium, and May will be dedicated as a month to whisky, when distillers around the country will open their doors to the public.

In July, Scotland’s biggest clan gathering in two centuries will be held in Edinburgh, and a flotilla of boats will sail from Fort William to Inverness on the Caledonian Canal.

www.scotland.gov.uk