New MD appointed at Scotland’s leading whisky tourism business

Drinks producer and Scotland’s leading Scotch Whisky tourism operator, Diageo, has appointed Dafydd Pugh Williams as the Managing Director of its brand homes across Scotland.

With more than 17 years’ experience in the drinks sector, Dafydd has held a variety of key commercial, marketing and retail roles both in the UK and globally during his time initially at AB-InBev and, for the past 13 years, at Diageo.

In 2023, Diageo welcomed more than 1.1 million visitors across its 12 Scottish brand homes, representing a significant contribution to Scotland’s tourism and hospitality economy.

Diageo’s brand homes are a diverse mix of visitor experiences across Scotland, including Talisker on Skye, Lagavulin on Islay, Oban, The Singleton at Glen Ord, and Edinburgh’s Johnnie Walker Princes Street.

In 2018, Diageo committed to making an industry-leading investment of £185million to create world visitor experiences in Scotland. The investment included opening Johnnie Walker Princes Street, and the four distilleries crucial to the art of whisky blending at the heart of Johnnie Walker, representing the ‘four corners of Scotland’ and the regional variations of Lowland (Glenkinchie), Speyside (Cardhu), Islay (Caol Ila) and Highland (Clynelish). The final step of this investment was the rebirth of 'ghost' distilleries Brora and Port Ellen, in 2021 and March 2024 respectively.

“Scotch Whisky creates economic opportunities across Scotland, from our capital city to the communities of the Highlands and Islands," said Williams. "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.”

Since launching, Johnnie Walker Princes Street has received several national and international accolades as a leading tourism destination. Rated as a five-star attraction by VisitScotland, it also recently won the World’s Leading Sprit Experience and Europe’s Leading Spirit Tourism Experience at the World Travel Awards. The Edinburgh visitor experience was also named as the Icons of Whisky Visitor Attraction of the Year, and won the coveted global Themed Entertainment Association (THEA) Award for Outstanding Achievement.

According to the most recent Scotch Whisky Association (SWA) figures for the industry more than two million people visited Scotch whisky visitor experiences in 2022 calendar year.