Memorandum submitted by the Scottish Minister
for Tourism, Culture and Sport
INTRODUCTION
The Scottish Executive welcomes the Committee's
inquiry into tourism. Our vision, and that of VisitScotland, is
that Scotland will be a must-visit destination where visitors
needs come first and tourism makes a vital contribution to economic
growth. An effective interface between UK-wide and Scottish policies
and activities on tourism is vital if we are to achieve this aim.
Tourism is Scotland's biggest business sector
and its prosperity matters to a great many people throughout the
country. It directly provides employment for nearly 200,000—one
in 11 people employed in Scotland work in a tourism-related job,
with the ratio being significantly higher in some rural areas.
Indirectly it contributes towards the maintenance of considerably
more jobs, since tourists spend more than £4 billion per
year in Scotland.
THE CHALLENGE
Tourism activity in Scotland in terms of numbers
and tourism spend rose steadily throughout the early part of the
1990s until 1997. Since then there has been a steady downward
trend, matching that at UK level. This decline has happened despite
international tourism continuing to grow, and despite significant
increases in investment in Scottish tourism. The challenge is
to reverse this decline and re-establish tourism as a growth sector
in the Scottish economy.
That cannot be done by any one tourism player
or group of players. Rather it will require a coherence of purpose
within Scotland's tourism industry, and across both private and
public sectors, which has not always been easy to establish, but
has become more apparent recently. The Executive's perception
is that the industry now understands, more clearly than it has
ever done, that unless it achieves this coherence of purpose and
action, the challenge of repositioning the tourism sector on the
road to sustainable growth will not be met. There is, in the Executive's
view, no alternative to the one team approach to building a Scottish
tourism industry that is internationally competitive.
THE TOURISM
STRATEGY AND
TOURISM FRAMEWORK
FOR ACTION
The Executive's Strategy for Scottish Tourism,
published in 2000, identified five priority areas for action:
— To improve the structure of tourism
funding;
— To improve the marketing of Scotland
under a new marketing strategy;
— To use the latest technology to understand
and meet the needs of customers;
— To improve product and service quality
across the industry; and
— To improve skills and training of
those employed in the industry.
In order to ensure delivery of the strategy,
the Executive published its Tourism Framework for Action
(TFA) in March 2002. This developed the strategy and sets out
a range of actions; its preparation used the one team approach
by consulting and involving a great many people across the tourism
sector. The three "pillars" of the TFA are:
— MARKET POSITION; increasing
awareness of Scotland as a tourist destination and improving access
to and within Scotland.
— CONSUMER FOCUS; ensuring that
tourism-related businesses provide what their customers want.
— ENHANCED STATUS; ensuring
that the importance of tourism to the Scottish economy is fully
and widely recognised.
To stimulate progress under the Tourism Framework
for Action, a Steering group under my chairmanship has been
established, with top level representation from private and public
sector players in the tourism industry in Scotland. At its first
meeting, it reviewed the 75 actions contained in the Tourism
Framework for Action and asked that these be prioritised.
This is now being done by an Implementation Group chaired by VisitScotland,
which is working to prioritise the TFA actions, set targets for
groups of these actions, and devise ways of measuring progress
against these targets. It is intended that there will be a report
to Parliament on progress under the Tourism Framework for Action
by March 2003.
BUDGETS
Across the public and private sectors, there
is continued investment in Scottish tourism. VisitScotland's budget
increased from £12.8 million in 1991-92 to £18.3 million
in 1996-97, and to £33.2 million this year (nearly as much
as the British Tourism Authority budget for marketing Britain
in overseas markets). And the VisitScotland budget is less than
half of what the public sector spends on tourism in Scotland.
In 2001-02, the enterprise networks, local authorities, Historic
Scotland and SNH spent around £50 million, making a total
of around £90 million invested by the public sector last
year across Scotland on tourism. To that sum could be added other
Executive expenditure in areas which benefit tourism in Scotland,
such as transport (eg the Executive funding in support of the
new Rosyth-Zeebrugge ferry service).
Under the Executive's 2003-06 Budget, tourism
will receive additional funding of £23 million over the three
year period. This will be used to (a) increase the VisitScotland
budget, (b) enable Historic Scotland to fund improvements to visitor
attractions, and (c) fund the Executive's new major events strategy
which will be announced shortly.
MOVING FORWARD
Good progress against the strategic priorities
set out in 2000 is being made. The first (to improve the structure
of tourism funding) is in progress within the context of the Executive's
recent Budget announcement and the ongoing structural review of
the ATB network. Clearly the outcome of that review will have
to pay due regard to the very important issue of funding for whatever
local delivery mechanisms emerge from it.
Against the second strategic priority (to improve
the marketing of Scotland), VisitScotland are moving forward strongly
with a new marketing strategy. This pays a great deal of attention
to Scotland's inherent brand strengths as a tourism destination,
and identifies themes within that (eg Freedom of Scotland, walking,
golf, vibrant cities) in which Scotland has so much to offer.
Latest surveys show that accommodation occupancy is at its highest
level since 1998 in some areas and across several sectors. These
figures appear to show that VisitScotland's new marketing strategy
is starting to work, although no doubt much more needs to be done
to develop it further. Linked to the marketing priority is a target
which the Executive has set as part of its Budget arrangements,
to get visitor numbers and spend in Scotland back to pre-2001
levels by 2004, and to set new targets at that time. There is
also a need to consider further the way in which VisitScotland
markets Scotland abroad, particularly in the light of the current
BTA review of its operations overseas.
The Executive's emerging major events strategy
will also provide a framework for pursuing further opportunities
and developments in encouraging more people to visit Scotland.
Details of how the strategy will be delivered will be announced
soon; the aim is to position Scotland as a global event destination
by 2015.
An aspect of marketing in which the Executive
takes particular interest is in promoting Scotland as a business
tourism destination. The returns on investment in this area are
high, and indeed the attraction of major business events will
be an integral part of the major events strategy.
Linked to the marketing of Scotland in overseas
markets is the issue of direct air access to Scotland. This is
a matter to which VisitScotland devotes considerable resources,
and the airlines are represented on the Framework For Action Steering
Group.
The third strategic priority (to use the latest
technology to understand and meet the needs of customers) has
also moved froward very strongly with the successful formation
of the visitscotland.com partnership between VisitScotland, the
area tourist boards and Schlumberger Sema. With advances in new
technology and the change in culture towards booking holidays
online, tourism must stay at the forefront of developments, making
it as easy as possible for tourists to arrange travel, accommodation
and other aspects of their stay in Scotland using the Internet.
Again there is clearly much work to do to build on this, but a
good foundation has been laid; the visitscotland.com website has
taken more e-bookings in its first three months than the previous
computer system had taken in three years. The Executive's budget
target in this area is that by 2005, 75% of accommodation in Scotland
will be bookable using the Internet.
THE STRATEGIC
PRIORITIES FOR
SCOTTISH TOURISM
On the fourth strategic priority (product quality),
VisitScotland already runs a very successful QA scheme which has
a penetration rate of around 80%, and helps tourism businesses
to help themselves achieve improvements in quality. Again that
is a good foundation, but the Executive believes that quality
is still a major issue for Scottish tourism. There remain too
many instances of visitors to Scotland being disappointed by inconsistent
quality of the tourism experience. The Executive is therefore
considering how to further improve product quality, perhaps by
the introduction of some form of compulsory registration scheme
for tourism establishments to more actively regulate quality standards,
and to drive home the message that achieving high standards of
quality must be a key priority for all those involved in achieving
the success of tourism. Product quality is one of the two key
strategic priorities for tourism which the Executive has set for
VisitScotland.
Allied to this, it is clear that the skills
and attitudes of those who work in the industry will be central
to the overall quality of the experience provided to our guests.
So the other key strategic priority of the Executive is to improve
tourism employee skills and training. The Executive has indicated
to VisitScotland that improving performance in this priority area
must now be pursued with renewed vigour. There are of course a
number of organisations already working in this field. The progress
made in preparation for a new Sector Skills Council for the hospitality
industry is heartening, and Tourism People is addressing the issue
of skills/training in Scotland. In addition Springboard UK is
seeking to address the recruitment issues which arise from the
low status in which the hospitality industry is held by potential
recruits. So much is already being done to help those working
in the industry rise to the challenge, but there is a great deal
of work still to be done in this area, and the Executive believes
that there is an important role for VisitScotland to play, contributing
its expertise within the industry and making the connections with
industry and the public sector training providers more generally.
There is little point in reaching more potential
customers, and successfully enticing them to Scotland, if they
are then disappointed with the experience, and not only do not
return but then influence others not to visit Scotland. So the
Executive believes that achieving and consistently delivering
very high quality at every level is the only way forward for Scottish
tourism, and that to achieve success, the sector must address
the two key priority areas set out above. Accordingly, VisitScotland
has been asked to consider how to focus more attention on these
areas over the next three-five years, while not losing sight of
the importance of marketing and e-commerce.
SUSTAINABLE TOURISM
A further issue for the future, underpinning
all that is done across the tourism spectrum, must be a sharper
focus on the importance of sustainable development, and on closing
the opportunity gap. The Executive has asked VisitScotland to
consider how to make progress in these cross-cutting areas. Tourism
already offers ease of entry and career potential to school leavers
in rural as well as urban areas. And the sustainable development
of Scottish tourism is vital to its long term success. Accordingly
the Executive will be considering with VisitScotland how best
to build on its existing Green Tourism Business Scheme. The concept
of sustainable tourism has in the past tended to focus on eco-tourism
opportunities (eg watching wildlife), which Scotland has in abundance.
The challenge now is to change attitudes across the tourism sector
towards issues such as energy use and waste disposal. Mechanisms
such as an interest free loan scheme operated by the Energy Saving
Trust on behalf of the Executive will be considered as a way of
encouraging investment in new energy systems and other ways of
improving the sustainable performance of the tourism sector in
Scotland.
25 November 2002
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