MSPs urged to look at closure of tourist offices

AN MP has called for an investigation into the closure of tourist offices in rural areas where the impact is greatest.

Nearly two-thirds of Scotland’s tourist information centres are due to close as part of ‘radical’ plans to change the service. VisitScotland said 39 of its 65 centres would shut over the next two years, leaving 26 ‘high impact regional hubs’.

Tourist office closures include Inveraray, Tarbert, Campbeltown, Tyndrum, Callander, Dunoon, Fort Augustus, Strontian, Castlebay and Lochmaddy.

VisitScotland argued that there had been a significant decline in the number of tourists visiting their information centres, and that it amounted to a 58 per cent drop in footfall over the past 10 years.

It also said two out of three visitors to Scotland were now accessing information online, and that £10 million would be invested in digital activity and new regional hubs. The 26 regional hubs will operate in locations of greatest visitor demand, such as Oban, Craignure, Fort William, Bowmore, Portree and Brodick, and offer information about attractions across wider regions.

However, Western Isles MP Angus Brendan MacNeil, in a letter to the chairwoman of Holyrood’s committee on culture tourism, Europe and external affairs, Joan McAlpine MSP, has asked for the impact of the closure of tourist information centres to be investigated.

Mr MacNeil said: ‘A 70-mile stretch of my constituency covering a number of islands will go from having three tourist information offices to having none.

‘VisitScotland appears to have decided to close tourist offices purely on the basis of footfall without regard to the geography of the area or to the number of visitors compared to the size of the resident population.

‘Castlebay tourist office [on Barra] had 17,000 visitors in 2016 – 17 times the population of the Isle of Barra. Lochmaddy saw 6,000 visitors, more than four times the number of residents.

‘With few other sources of information in these rural areas, the impact on tourism could be substantial.

‘I have asked Joan McAlpine and her committee to look into how VisitScotland made its decisions and the impact on tourism in remote and rural areas such as the islands of these cuts.’