Tag: tourism

Getting tourism ready for recovery

A call has gone out to those with skills, expertise and experience, who are currently ‘furloughed’ or on a reduced working pattern, to help address the challenges facing Scotland’s tourism sector. 

In 2017, the sector provided employment for eight out of every 100 Scottish workers, but thousands of tourism business owners are naturally feeling anxious about the future in the wake of coronavirus.

The call to arms – ‘Getting ready for recovery’ – has been championed by around 120 alumni of the Destination Leaders Programme (DLP), a joint initiative for tourism industry professionals delivered for the past seven years by Edinburgh Napier University and Scottish Enterprise.

DLP alumni to mentor furloughed tourism workers along the road to recovery

The aim of the furlough initiative is to help small tourism businesses recover by providing targeted support and mentoring that can enable them to take forward identified actions, outputs and outcomes during this period of enforced reflection.

Professor Jane Ali-Knight (above) of Edinburgh Napier University’s Business School, explained: “It is intended that involvement will fall under the acceptable category of professional training for ‘furloughed’ professionals, and will help maintain and extend their professional skills, expertise, experience and network.”

This will mean projects taken up will be focused on objectives that underpin The Scottish Tourism Strategy to 2030, as well as wider destination leadership, development, management, industry resilience and recovery, and destination promotion.

Aileen Lamb from Scottish Enterprise said: “The objective is to support recovery and potential restructure of the Scottish tourism industry. We want to use this opportunity to encourage innovative thinking across a range of themes.

“Most importantly we want to encourage the supportive and adaptable nature of tourism professionals to shine. The initiative will include a weekly online session called DLP Assemble giving businesses a collaborative place to gather regular updates on initiatives and government funding as we look towards the point when restrictions can be lifted.”

Ali-Knight says: “We will guide participants on themes and tasks arising through the DLP Assemble initiative, to help form project groups with a good mix of experience and expertise, and to match groups with mentors and professional support.”

Kenneth Wardrop, a fellow DLP founder, says: “We want to act quickly, working with existing groups such as ETAG [Edinburgh Tourism Action Group] and STERG [Scottish Tourism Emergency Response Group] in order to start applying practical thinking and solutions in response to the evolving and devastating impacts on Scotland’s tourism industry.”

Edinburgh Napier University is also running a free online course through FutureLearn to help small tourism businesses understand the power of data they hold or can access in helping them market themselves more effectively at this critical time.

‘Understanding Data in Tourism’ is open now for people to register for the next starting point, on 16 May, by visiting: 

futurelearn.com https://www.futurelearn.com/partners/edinburgh-napier-university

Road to Recovery? Council Leader chairs tourism roundtable

Experts from across Edinburgh’s tourism and hospitality industries have been brought together by the Council to discuss the impact of the coronavirus on the city’s visitor economy.

In what is the first in a series of meetings with key sectors, members of ETAG, Edinburgh Airport, Festivals Edinburgh, Visit Scotland, Essential Edinburgh and the Chamber of Commerce joined a virtual roundtable this week (Thursday 16 April) chaired by Council Leader Adam McVey to kickstart work on a city recovery plan.

During the tourism oversight group’s first meeting, the sector:

  • Reaffirmed its commitment to the aims of Edinburgh’s new Tourism Strategy – a 10 year plan which focuses on managing tourism and balancing the needs of local residents, businesses and visitors.
  • Discussed initial ideas for economic recovery in the sector, including options for recovering local footfall and business tourism once lockdown measures have been eased.
  • Agreed to carry out urgent work in a number of priority areas, which will be reviewed when the group meets again in three weeks’ time.

Council Leader, Adam McVey, said: “There is a real willingness from all sides and sectors to use our city’s strengths as a platform for working together over the coming months so that we can recover from this global emergency.

“It is so important to the future of our Capital that we remain committed to sustainable and responsible tourism when businesses open again and keep our focus on the priorities we agreed last November – to put our people, place and environment at the heart of our plans.

“We entered this outbreak with Edinburgh’s key sectors and local businesses in good health. I believe this will stand us in good stead as our City and economy recovers. Our contribution to the world, whether it’s the arts or academia, has been enormous and we know it’s left a strong impression on so many people’s experience of our Capital.

“The road to recovery may be long, but tourism is an important engine for Edinburgh’s economy. We’ll need to work together to share the benefits of tourism across Edinburgh, and our new tourism strategy is central to achieving this.”

Donald Emslie, Chair of the Edinburgh Tourism Action Group (ETAG), said: “This week’s meeting was extremely welcome, as it demonstrated the Council’s recognition of the huge challenges that the tourism sector is facing and the need for a positive and proactive response.

“ETAG will be playing a leading role in this and engaging with the tourism industry and key stakeholders to ensure that we work together as “Team Edinburgh” to support the development and delivery of the recovery plan.”

Depute Leader Cammy Day added: “Tourism has been an important topic of conversation in our city for a long time and residents’ feedback over the last 12 months helped us to shape Edinburgh’s new Tourism Strategy.

“This feedback and the ambitions of this 10 year plan need to remain central to our efforts and those of everyone in the sector, as we seek to help Edinburgh recover economically.

“We’ve always been proud to be a small city which made it big on the world stage – a place which is recognised as an enviable city to live in and visit. When these difficult times are behind us, we look forward to being able to come together once again to sample all that makes Edinburgh the inspiring place it is.

“Managing this will involve a range of measures to support the sector and workers, and we’re committed to working together to put a strong recovery plan in place.”

The group’s findings will inform a citywide recovery plan, which will involve senior Councillors and Council officers seeking feedback from industry leaders across various sectors.

Earlier this month, the Convener of Housing, Homelessness and Economy Chaired a meeting of Edinburgh’s Economic Advisory Panel featuring business leaders and major employers, to gather views on the impacts to Edinburgh business of coronavirus.

Such work will continue as we coordinate findings and next steps for Edinburgh’s recovery strategy.

 

Princes Street Gardens – no more business as usual!

As per my previous post, this will be an issue in Edinburgh when the world returns to what passes as normality:

A message from The Citizen Network:

PRINCES STREET GARDENS – NO MORE BUSINESS AS USUAL

This is an appeal for concerned residents of Edinburgh and any others who care about the protection of green spaces to submit emails to the Parks Dept of the Edinburgh City Council parks@edinburgh.gov.uk on behalf of the wellbeing of Princes Street Gardens, their use as gardens, memorials, appropriate community focused activities and crucial city centre green space for the benefit of the residents of Edinburgh as communal owners of this common good land and our guests. The deadline is 6 March, 2020.

This appeal relates to the proposed Summer Sessions concert series for 2020.

The Issue:

With issues coming to the fore concerning city centre parks, (especially those that are on our common good land and collectively owned by the people of Edinburgh), being prioritised as event venues over the gardens, memorials and green spaces that they are, we have seen the compounding damage that has been inflicted on our parks.

Perhaps it is time to tell the city that events and festivals, especially those for private profit are better suited to more appropriate venues.

Tourism, events and festivals will always be a part of Edinburgh.

However, the industry needs to better choose venues for their events that will not cause compounding, and in many cases, irreversible ecological damage to our crucial and historically valuable green spaces.

The industry should also be more mindful of the scale and size of their events and festivals as we are a finite city with limited resources currently facing austerity and cuts to our crucial services. Our green spaces deserve crucial and vital protection from the impacts of this misuse.

What you can do:

Send an email by 6th March 2020 to Parks Dept of the Edinburgh City Council parks@edinburgh.gov.uk

Tell them your concerns about the gardens and object to their use to host the Summer Sessions of 2020.

Finally, the Old Town Community Council recently made public on twitter the following:

@EdinOldTownCC

#WPSG will be predominantly closed for 25 days in August. If you don’t want to be effectively barred from #WestPrincesStreetGardens for those 25 days, then please email your objection to parks@edinburgh.gov.uk by Friday 6th March. More objections mean it’s less likely to happen!

Events have clearly moved on since the Ciziten Network first posted this in March, but organisers are keen that the issue is kept in the public eye. Happy to help – Ed.

Tourism Secretary slams ‘irresponsible behaviour’

Rural Economy and Tourism Secretary Fergus Ewing is urging people to stop travelling to the Highlands and Islands in a bid to avoid the Coronavirus.

People with second homes and campervans have been reportedly travelling in large numbers to the area in recent days.

Mr Ewing said: “I am furious at the reckless and irresponsible behaviour of some people travelling to the Highland and Islands. This has to stop now. Let me be crystal clear, people should not be travelling to rural and island communities full stop. They are endangering lives. Do not travel.

“Panic buying will have a devastating impact on the livelihoods of rural shops and potentially puts unwanted pressure on NHS services in our rural communities.

“The Scottish Government’s advice is that essential travel only should be undertaken. We have been in touch with CalMac and industry leaders to discuss what further measures may be required to deal with this issue.”

”People First”: Council tourism rethink?

Proposals for a new-look tourism strategy to guide Edinburgh’s visitor economy over the next 10 years have been endorsed by members of the Sustainability and Policy Committee.

Council Leader Adam McVey, who convenes the Committee, welcomed the sustainable way forward which is outlined in Edinburgh’s draft 2030 Tourism Strategy, saying it will put people at the heart of decisions made about tourism in the Capital.

Cllr McVay said: “This is a fundamental shift in policy from generating growth to managing the continued success of our tourism industry for our people, environment and sense of place. This strategy is about making the experience of tourism better for everyone – for our visitors but also the 35,000 people working in hospitality and the 500,000 people who call this city home.

“The vast majority of people who took part in the consultation process agree with the strategy’s key aims – prioritising putting people, place and environment first. It’s about fair work and a fairer and stronger footing for residents to have their say too.

“Industry should be commended for their acceptance of this ‘new normal’ and for recognising Edinburgh’s tourism success shouldn’t be taken for granted. The feedback from the sector acknowledges that the best way to create a sustainable future for tourism in the city is for all of us to work together. I’m looking forward to discussing this further at ETAG’s conference next week.”

Donald Emslie, Chair of ETAG (the Edinburgh Tourism Action Group), said: “The City of Edinburgh Council’s endorsement of the strategy is a significant milestone and their support and leadership in the development process to date has been key to ensuring that the city will continue to be recognised as an extremely successful, innovative and forward thinking exemplar of tourism development in the UK.

“The 2030 Tourism Strategy reflects this, presenting a significant step change in the approach to tourism in the city that responds to the changes, challenges and opportunities that the 2020’s will bring.

“We’re looking forward to further discussion on the strategy at the ETAG Conference, as well as hearing from Barcelona and Amsterdam on how they have created new initiatives to manage tourism success and what Edinburgh can learn from these.”

The ETAG 2020 Conference is being held in the Edinburgh Assembly Rooms on Thursday 30th January.

The city council has come in for increasing criticism for it’s stewardship of Edinburgh’s public assets. The latest of these was last night’s City for Sale public meeting, organised by Edinburgh’s civic trust The Cockburn Association.

 

Scotland Starts Here! New tourism drive launched for the Scottish Borders and Midlothian

Tourism businesses in the Scottish Borders and Midlothian are embarking on a new marketing campaign designed to revolutionise the area’s visitor economy. Continue reading Scotland Starts Here! New tourism drive launched for the Scottish Borders and Midlothian

City for Sale?

The commodification of our public places

One of the defining issues currently in front of the City of Edinburgh is how we value our public places. Should Princes Street Gardens be an oasis of green-ness and tranquillity, or should it be the city’s performance hub, the Go To place for happening events and Festival activities?

Should civic spaces be open for the unrestricted access of City dwellers and City visitors alike; or should they be a gated venue accessible only to ticket holders and promoters?

How we value public space is how we value the city overall. The Cockburn Association has been increasingly concerned about the commercialisation of our squares, our parks and our streets. We are concerned about the erosion of public investment in public places.

We are concerned that the voice of residents is decreasingly heard. We are concerned that this view is shared by many. Is this right?

As the city prepares numerous strategies and policies including City Plan 2030 (a new Local Development Plan) and a new Tourism Strategy, now is the time to galvanise opinion.

On Wednesday 22 January 2020, we will hold a Public Summit in the Central Hall, West Tollcross, open to all who share our concerns (and those who don’t too).

Save the Date. Further details will be available in early 2020.

Terry Levinthal

Director, The Cockburn Association

Edinburgh Civic Trust

 

VisitBritain forecasts record year for inbound tourism in 2020

Forecasts from VisitBritain, the national tourism agency, indicate that 2020 is set to be a record year for inbound tourism to the UK.

Spending by overseas visitors is predicted to reach a record £26.6 billion in 2020, a 6.6% increase on spending in 2019 which is expected to top out at £25 billion. Continue reading VisitBritain forecasts record year for inbound tourism in 2020

‘Re-imagining’ Hogmanay in Edinburgh

Let’s start from the basis that Underbelly’s events have been a disaster and should be shut down immediately (writes MIKE SMALL).

They soak up public money, refuse to be transparent about their profits, cause environmental damage to public parks, and shut down and blight open spaces held in the common good. Continue reading ‘Re-imagining’ Hogmanay in Edinburgh