Scotch whisky giant Diageo has appointed a new managing director for its brand homes across Scotland.
Dafydd Pugh Williams, who has spent 13 of his 17 years in the drinks trade with Diageo, will head a portfolio of visitor experiences including Talisker on Skye, Lagavulin on Islay, Oban, The Singleton at Glen Ord, and Edinburgh’s Johnnie Walker Princes Street.
The company has been ramping up facilities for visitors to its distilleries since 2018, when it committed to invest £180 million to develop a range of key sites across Scotland. The investment included the opening of Johnnie Walker Princes Street, and upgrades at the four distilleries at the heart of the Johnnie Walker blend: Glenkinchie, Cardhu, Caol Ila and Clynelish.
READ MORE: Popular crisps win first supermarket deal outside Scotland
The final step of the investment was the rebirth of 'ghost' distilleries Brora in Sutherland and Port Ellen on Islay, in 2021 and March 2024 respectively.
Diageo welcomed more than 1.1 million visitors to its 12 Scottish brand homes in 2023, which it said generated a significant contribution to Scotland’s tourism and hospitality economy.
David Pugh Williams said: “Scotch whisky creates economic opportunities across Scotland, from our capital city to the communities of the Highlands and Islands. It’s an honour to be leading our work in making Scotch whisky an even more exciting and vibrant experience for our guests, and powering the Scottish economy.
“Breaching the one million visitor threshold for the first time in 2023 is an amazing achievement, but it isn’t the summit of our ambitions. My aim in this role is to grow whisky tourism in Scotland and responsibly grow our brands.”
The most recent figures from the Scotch Whisky Association showed that more than two million people visited whisky visitor experiences in the 2022 calendar year.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here