What a party it promised to be. In June, when the Scottish government revealed plans for Homecoming Scotland, its big tourism initiative for 2009, it gleefully presented in its publicity material an image of hundreds of happy white-faced “heroes” marching off to celebrate their Scottishness.

When, six months later, the SNP administration unveiled its latest vision for next year's festivities, a late arrival had appeared among the group of party-goers. Pictured in the front ranks was a single, solitary Asian man. Apparently oblivious to the rumpus around him, he can be seen thoughtfully reading The Life of Robert Burns.

The updated image features on the cover of the new Homecoming events guide and is said by officials to represent “the diversity of modern Scotland”. Alex Salmond, the First Minister, says in the introduction: “Whether you're a Scot, you have Scots ancestry or you have a passion for our great nation, 2009 will be an exceptional year for Scotland.”

But if any government spin doctor hoped that a little bit of airbrushing might bolster their promotion, they were sadly mistaken. The move was lambasted last night as insulting tokenism by campaigners for racial equality.

Geoff Palmer, the Edinburgh academic who first accused the government of aiming its campaign at wealthy, white Americans, described the before-and-after images as damaging for race relations.

“This is an insult to Asian and Afro-Caribbean people, who are part of the Scottish diaspora. With this change, they are acknowledging an omission, but they have made it a farce by amending the picture,” Mr Palmer, the president of the Edinburgh and Lothians Race Relations Council, said.

“It is a deception. If you campaign in race relations, you are constantly trying to convince people that the system is opening up. Something like this makes a mockery of that claim.”

Sunny Hundal, the editor of the online magazine Asians in Media, said that the images were an “outrageous” slap in the face for thousands of Asians in Glasgow and Edinburgh.

“These are proud Scottish Asians, who insist on their Scottishness, not their Britishness, and they are as much a part of the country as anybody else. It is amazing that a government department doesn't accept that, and even more incredible that they had to think about it after the event,” Mr Hundal said.

Homecoming Scotland is a £5million tourism campaign, which is being marketed heavily in North America. It reaches out to St Andrews societies, golfers and genealogy enthusiasts who have the money to cross the Atlantic and sample more than 300 events next year, including clan gatherings, Highland games and arts festivals.

The campaign has been dogged by bad publicity. Originally conceived to celebrate the 250th anniversary of Robert Burns, it was dealt a blow when it emerged that the new Robert Burns Birthplace Museum in Alloway would open a year late in 2010.

Another difficult moment came when it was revealed that Lulu, one of the stars of a £150,000 TV advertisement, had not travelled to Scotland to film the commercial. Her contribution was shot in London, and superimposed on images of Castle Stalker.

The most trenchant criticism has been reserved for the racial component of the campaign, however. At its marketing launch in summer, use of the terms “heart Scots” and “blood Scots” to describe the target audience raised delegates' eyebrows and the subsequent imagery has caused uproar.

VisitScotland, the government agency which promotes tourism, stressed that no complaints had been made against the original image and no offence had been intended.

The Scottish government said Homecoming's events programme was constantly updated to incorporate “more events and greater diversity”.

Mukami McCrum, chief executive of the Central Scotland Racial Equality Council, said: “Who is being welcomed back by this Homecoming? I am not being naive - it is white people. If you plant in the minds of young kids that the Scots are a certain type of colour, then 20 years on, I will still be sitting here, fighting racism.”

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