Scotland's greatest industry?
As our new Chairman Dr Mike Cantlay took up his post at the
beginning of April, he expressed his views on Scottish tourism and
embracing sustainability as Scottish tourism's magic asset.
"For the Scottish economy, tourism is without doubt vast and
vital: £4 billion turnover, 20,000 Scottish businesses, employing
more than 200,000 people. However, as a nation, Scotland struggles
to get its mind around tourism.
Tourism behaves quite unlike other industries. As we saw last
year with the 'staycation' effect, it has extraordinary resilience.
The industry itself has ambitions to grow tourism rapidly over the
next few years. Yet we struggle to put our finger on how best to
unlock that potential. Are we missing something?
In my view, Scottish tourism does enjoy a magic ingredient which
I suspect we are failing to recognise: long LONG-term
sustainability. And this might very well be the year we learn to
appreciate it. During 2010, Scotland will celebrate the 200th
anniversary of Sir Walter Scott’s writing of 'The Lady of The
Lake'. Although primarily a cultural celebration, success of Sir
Walter’s iconic poem led to thousands of tourists visiting Scotland
to see the majestic landscape of The Trossachs. These intrepid
visitors were amongst the first tourists anywhere in the world and
Scotland has been a global leader in tourism ever since. This
recent recession might well have been the worst since the Wall
Street Crash. But take your hat off to Scottish tourism that has
prospered for 200 years despite world wars, depressions and growing
competition.
Yet as we celebrate the 200th anniversary of Scottish tourism
the “billion dollar” question has to be, how about the next 200
years? To survive in business long-term, one must differentiate.
And boy does Scotland have unique icons to exploit: our cities, our
islands, our festivals, our music arts and culture, our food, more
than 250 castles, Loch Ness, Loch Lomond, the Tattoo, Hogmanay,
Burns, whisky, tartan, golf - the list goes on.
What’s more, successful tourist developments are by design long
term assets. The actual steam ship, Sir Walter Scott on Loch
Katrine has just been refurbished after her first 110 years, and
now she’s ready for the next. I could name literally hundreds of
tourist developments, many of them recent creations designed for
modern descerning customer tastes, yet still assets that I’d expect
to be prospering in 200 years time. And indeed with care and
maintenance some, like our golf courses, could be earners for
'Scotland plc' in perpetuity. So take today’s £4 billion revenue
and imagine the vast and growing earning capacity of our tourist
industry across the entirety of its life cycle of hundreds and
hundreds of years.
But not so fast. If you detect an impression that these bounties
will simply fall at our feet then I fear you are mistaken. I
believe the next few years will be a defining period for Scotland’s
tourist industry. Firstly, in addition to the rapid growth of other
industry sectors, as a nation we must appreciate that tourism is,
will be and indeed has to be the very bedrock of the Scottish
economy for generations to come. Secondly, Scottish tourism’s
differentiating icons must be protected, and adding environmental
sustainability to those Unique Selling Points is vital to our
long-term success. Thirdly, we must recognise that encouraging
investment in the quality and value of our existing product, whilst
also attracting new tourist developments and initiatives, is
crucial to our long-term success. Further, our goal must be to lead
the world in harnessing developments in technology and transport.
Finally we must market Scotland tirelessly to a world where
competing tourist destinations will always be jealous of our
success.
So for my term as Chair of VisitScotland my determination will
be that we inspire Scotland to secure the “step changes” that will
propel our tourist industry forward to long term sustainable
growth. Indeed my ultimate aspiration is that generations to come
will not only see Scottish tourism as a great industry, but indeed
as Scotland’s greatest industry ever."
Your Views
Do you agree with Mike Cantlay? Is there anything that you
think would help tourism develop in Scotland?
If you have any other feedback to send please use the Comments
facility.
