QUARANTINE FEAR HITS TOURISM
Scores of English visitors cancel Scottish holidays in Border row
SCOTS hoteliers have been bombarded with cancellation requests from tourists in England amid a row over quarantining visitors.
Scores of hotel and B&B guests from south of the Border have been abandoning their Scottish holidays over concerns they would need to follow strict Covid-19 quarantining rules after arriving.
One business owner in Dunbartonshire said she had a guest from Yorkshire cancel a booking of six rooms due to the uncertainty over the issue. Tourist businesses on the Isle of Skye are also feeling the pressure of the Border concerns from guests.
Beth MacLeod and her husband Murdo own the award-winning Knockderry House, near
Cove, and are regularly fully booked at this time of year. However, the coronavirus pandemic has meant they are now having to operate the business through ‘three winters’, with a slump in guests this summer. First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said she has no current plans to impose a quarantine on English tourists, but has not ruled it out.
Mrs MacLeod, who has owned the luxury accommodation on the banks of Loch Long for almost 20 years, said: ‘This is a really complex issue. This is absolutely not about us trying to put either our staff or customers at risk, why would we? All we are saying is that there needs to be clarity in the messaging that is going out.
‘My concern is the mixed messaging. All that does is seed confusion and uncertainty.
‘It is making people more and more hesitant. I can only talk about the people who have phoned me concerned about whether or not they are going to be able to come and stay, and those who have outright cancelled and want a refund.’
She added: ‘I have had one outright “I want a complete refund” and that was a lady from Yorkshire who had six rooms booked.
‘That may not sound like an awful lot but to small businesses like ours, who are hanging on by a thread, every single booking that doesn’t happen or is cancelled or deferred is having a real impact on job security and survivability right now.
‘To put a human face on it, I have 18 members of staff who are reliant on this business for a job. I don’t just employ 18 people, I have a window cleaner, local tradesmen who help us
‘Making people more hesitant’
maintain and repair the building, I have food suppliers, drinks suppliers, and wine suppliers who are all Scottish businesses.
‘The threads of this go really quite deep in our country and if a lot of businesses like mine struggle to survive over this winter, where are we going to be next spring?’
Mr MacLeod added that the lack of clarity over the Border issue could mean guests stay elsewhere in the UK instead of Scotland.
He said: ‘We had people phoning us and saying, “We want to come, but the Border is closed”. We have to ask ourselves why do they think that?’
Further north, the owner of the world-famous Three Chimneys hotel and restaurant on the Isle of Skye warned they are experiencing similar cancellations.
Owner Gordon Campbell Gray, who also owns The Pierhouse at Port Appin in Argyll, said ‘livelihoods were at stake’ amid fears over possible Border closures and quarantines.
Mr Campbell Gray said: ‘I have recently received cancellations from guests from England who say that they are worried about being unwelcome. This is shocking and we must ensure that this message is changed.’ Other hoteliers and restaurateurs he had spoken to had also recorded cancellations from customers in England.
Scottish Conservative economy spokesman Maurice Golden called on the First Minister to rule out quarantining for English visitors. He said: ‘The First Minister’s failure to rule out quarantining visitors from England is clearly costing Scottish businesses customers and jobs. There is no justification for the First Minister to undermine the economy in this way – she must rule out the possibility of closing the Border now.’
A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘There are many, many parts of the world right now where particular parts of the country have internal borders closed to other parts of the country because of a desire to stop this virus spreading.
‘I think some public health experts from overseas will probably look at this debate in the UK right now and won’t really understand why we wouldn’t be driven purely by considerations of public health.’
Comment – Page 18
Guests are saying they are worried about being unwelcome