THE Scottish tourism industry is "at risk of total collapse” amid warnings firms which are the lifeblood of the sector will fail without immediate cash support.
Industry body the Scottish Tourism Alliance (STA) has said this morning that there are more than 2,500 tourism businesses which are receiving no grant support from government.
It also warned a “stark number” of businesses are being turned down for hardship and others grants.
STA chief executive Marc Crothall said: “These businesses will not survive more than a few weeks. The furlough scheme was there to protect jobs for the future. If there is no business, there are no jobs.”
The organisation has called for a date to be set for the re-opening of the tourism industry in Scotland to allow businesses to plan and provide confidence to people who wish to holiday in the country. It noted that the easing of lockdown in England has sparked a revival of the industry south of the Border, amid reports bookings for destinations such as Cornwall are on the rise.
The STA said 2,500 tourism businesses are not receiving coronavirus grants because they operate from properties with a rateable value of more than £51,000. Campaigners say the use of the rates system to determine grants unfairly penalises the tourism and hospitality sector, arguing that property values are not a true guide of business profitability.
Mr Crothall said: "These medium to larger businesses are the lifeblood of Scotland’s tourism industry, major employers – without them, we simply have no tourism industry and these businesses are at risk of collapse. The Hardship and Pivotal funds whilst welcomed are not enough and many have not been able to access."
Scottish tourism supports 218,000 jobs and contributes £7 billion to the Scottish economy, the organisation said.
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 hereComments are closed on this article