VISITORS SEEKING “local” restaurants and attractions during The Open Golf Championship at Carnoustie were given directions to premises in Edinburgh by a major tourism website.

The operator of website visitscotland.com last night apologised for the blunder, blamed on a “glitch” with links between pages.

It is feared the problem may have gone unnoticed for more than two months, and local hoteliers and businesses have missed out as a result.

A local hotelier said she approached Patrick O’Shaughnessy, VisitScotland’s area director, on the issue more than two months ago but it seems nothing was done.

She said, “When I first pointed the issue out to Patrick he insisted that we must be ‘Googling’ the wrong site, but when he checked it out himself he saw what we were complaining about and assured me that it would be sorted.”

She added, “It makes me very angry to see Edinburgh being promoted over Tayside on this site as I think we stand to miss out on a huge opportunity.”

In addition, the hotel given top billing for The Open on the VisitScotland holiday offers section was in Kirkcaldy.

Mr O’Shaughnessy said the Kirkcaldy hotel was given top billing because most hotels in Dundee and Angus are full during the tournament.

He was unable to explain the links fault and did not recall it being raised with him.

He pledged to take steps to investigate.

Site operator eTourism Ltd said, “We were alerted to a linking error on the website this morning which was fixed immediately.”