The Scottish Tourism Alliance, the representative body for Scotland’s tourism industry, has urged the Scottish Government to set up a ministerial chaired industry task force as matter of urgency following the publication of ‘Scotland’s route map through and out of the crisis’ yesterday and it is requesting that protocols be set as a priority in order to get businesses re-open.
In his letter to the First Minister Marc Crothall, Chief Executive of the STA, requested that:
- Parts of the tourism economy to allowed to open sooner than has been set out in the route map such as self-catering, sailing, caravan parks and hotels providing they are able to demonstrate that they can conform to the agreed standards and protocols in a way that protects both their employees and customers, as has been the case with other UK devolved nations. Agreement of the protocol/minimum standards as a priority to allow tourism businesses to re-open.
- The provision of an urgent support package in the short term to stop more businesses from closing and making employees redundant. We recognise that there has been a significant level of support from Scottish and UK governments and that future funding will need to come from the UK Treasury. We would therefore expect the Scottish Government to be pushing hard for these monies to be made available.
- A long-term package of specific support for the tourism sector due to loss of revenue from remaining closed during the high season as detailed in today’s route map.
- The establishment of an overarching ministerial chaired industry task force as soon as possible, given the severity of the impact on the industry to which the recommendations of the Scottish Tourism Emergency Response Group (STERG) can be fed into to allow a robust recovery action plan to be developed.