Edinburgh is now a city effectively run by tourist industry

The idea that the city council exists to serve citizens may seem quaint, but it is important, writes Cliff Hague

Edinburgh is braced for the surge in visitors that arrives each August for the Festival. So now is a good time to ask some fundamental questions about what kind of future we want for tourism.

A revamp of Edinburgh’s tourism strategy is under way; it will be launched in six months’ time setting out actions planned for the coming decade. Are the right questions being asked? Are the voices of citizens and residents being heard?

CNN Travel recently identified Edinburgh, alongside Barcelona, Venice, Rome and Amsterdam as global “hotspots” for “overtourism”. The helter-skelter, sky’s the limit, tourist boom we are living through represents a considerable success not just for the tourist industry, but also its partners, the Scottish Government and our local city council.

Tourism is seen by the Government as Scotland’s most important industry, employing 207,000 people, providing one in 12 of our jobs, though contributing a less impressive six per cent to the national economy. Edinburgh is crucial to Scotland’s tourism. In 2017, the city accounted for 63 per cent of overnight trips by overseas visitors to Scotland, and 45 per cent of all overseas visitor spending in Scotland.

With a 60/40 per cent split between visits from March-october and the rest of the year, tourism is also less seasonal in Edinburgh than in rural Scotland. Edinburgh’s 2020 tourism strategy sought to increase the number of visitors to the city by a third between 2012 and 2020, from 3.27 million a year to 4.39 million.

By 2016, it was ahead of that target and the “stretch target” was upped to 4.8 million a year. So, simultaneously, Scotland’s tourist industry and the revenues it generates for government are dangerously

over-reliant on Edinburgh, but also umbilically tied to the city’s further tourist growth. A policy for tourism in Edinburgh is a policy for tourism in Scotland, and vice versa.

Amidst economic uncertainties about Brexit, government and the industry will cling to the comfort blanket of growing tourism in Edinburgh. The plunging pound makes Scotland more affordable for international visitors, but Brexit poses problems for tourist businesses, including visa uncertainties and the end of Eu-wide free movement in a sector that relies significantly on non-uk EU workers, and has a disproportionate percentage of employees earning below the living wage. In addition, the prolonged and continuing period of austerity has drained the capacity of local councils to maintain, let alone enhance, the public realm and its attractiveness, not just to residents but to visitors also.

Globally, tourism demand is expected to accelerate in the medium term. Therefore, there are good grounds for expecting the number of tourists coming to Edinburgh to continue to increase, and for businesses and government policymakers to seek to attract new visitors, particularly from emerging economies experiencing rapid growth of middle-class incomes and lifestyles.

A global economic recession may yet blunt the momentum, but this is the lens through which preparation of Edinburgh’s tourism strategy for the next ten years is being viewed. The work is being led by the Edinburgh Tourism Strategy Implementation Group (SIG), which has operated since 2012.

Its members include Edinburgh council leader Adam Mcvey and councillor Donald Wilson, convenor of the Culture and Communities Committee. Then there are three