Mr Wishart plans to write to JK Rowling

He said: "It's outrageous that Scots should be stumping up to finance the authority, which is supposed to represent Scottish tourism worldwide, for it to deliberately cut Scotland out in this way.

"As far as the Harry Potter campaign is concerned, Scots are effectively paying to promote English tourism - with Scotland potentially losing out on millions of pounds of tourism business.

"Perhaps the kindest thing that can be said about the London-centric BTA officials who are responsible for this costly snub is that they are a bunch of muggles (non-wizard humans)."

The SNP's Highlands & Islands spokesman now plans to write to Harry Potter author, JK Rowling, who recently bought a house in his North Tayside constituency.

He is calling on her to back moves for Scottish sites to be included in the next version of the campaign due out in the spring.

'Huge success'

The current brochure features a number of English tourists spots including Gloucester Cathedral and Alnwick Castle in Northumberland.

But the BTA has defended the fact that no Scottish locations were included.

A spokeswoman for the authority said it had received permission from Warner Brothers, who made the current film, to use just eight sites from the movie in the brochure.

She said the studio insisted that all of the sites were public buildings.

Perhaps the kindest thing that can be said about the London-centric BTA officials who are responsible for this costly snub is that they are a bunch of muggles

Pete Wishart, SNP

"We were thrilled to get the go ahead from Warner Brothers to use the Harry Potter logo completely free of charge in a bid to capitalise on its huge success," she said.

"We would have loved to use every location used in the film but the company was adamant that we only used certain sites, it was something out of our control."

She said eight sites from the movie were shown on a map in the brochure in red and were accompanied by several paragraphs with information about them.

Another 32 other sites, including 13 in Scotland and several in Wales, are also highlighted in the map in a different colour.

The spokeswoman added: "It is simply not right to say we have forgotten Scotland.

"We are fully aware of our statutory obligation to promote all countries within the UK and jump through hoops to do so.

"This occasion was no different and at the end of the day we are delighted with the brochure which we think fairly represents this country as a whole."