Stern warning to tourist board

The Courier, 9 October 2000

Enterprise Minister Henry McLeish is to issue a stern warning to Scottish Tourist Board bosses to improve their performance.

The minister is to tell members of the STB they have to produce a return on cash from the Executive they were given to invest in the sector.

The warning will be issued later this week at the board’s annual conference and comes after Scotland has been hit by declining tourist figures and revenues.

Mr McLeish said, “Myself and my junior minister Alisdair Morrison have spent more time, energy and resources on this than any other issue in our portfolio.

“We have tried to bring this industry, which is worth about £2.5 billion and employs about 400,000 people, to the centre of economic activity.

“It had no strategy when we came to it, but we gave it one.”

Scottish tourism has been hard hit by the strong pound, with figures for last year showing an 11% drop in foreign visitors and a loss of £123 million in revenue.

There has been repeated criticism of the tourist board, most recently by a series of MSPs last week.

Tory MSPs claimed the STB’s Ossian online accommodation system was a flop. There were reports it has taken a total of 30 bookings, despite costing £6 million.

The Executive published a tourism strategy in February, which set the industry the task of increasing revenues to £3 billion by 2005.

It gave an £11 million boost to the sector, with cash to improve skills through training and extra money for marketing. Niche markets were also to be targeted, such as golf, culture and the descendants of emigrants seeking their roots.

Other measures included a multilingual call centre for tourist information and bookings, more advisers on quality and standards and a national transport timetable by the end of the year for the STB website.

Tourism information and booking was to be available next year on a single international phone number.

Last week, however, Tory MSPs said it was time the STB was shaken up and a review conducted of the way it markets the nation.

“The Scottish Executive has had a review of Scottish Enterprise. Can we not have the same for the STB?" said enterprise spokesman David Davidson. “Many people claim it has lost its credibility and dynamism.”

A review of the STB by its chairman, Lord Gordon of Strathblane, has been commissioned by ministers.

“The results of Lord Gordon’s review is crucial, as after that it is down to industry to think positively, use vision and stop talking themselves into a crisis,” said Mr McLeish.