Edinburgh urged to stop building new hotels and 'reimagine' a different future
It has been one of Edinburgh’s most recognisable landmarks for nearly 200 years.
But now the building long touted as a potential home for the Scottish Parliament stands as a symbol of a divided Scottish capital.
Half a century after it was last in proper use, the old Royal High School on Calton Hill is once again facing an uncertain future after a protracted battle to turn it into a luxury hotel was rejected by its near neighbour, the Scottish Government.
Tensions have been building for several years over Edinburgh’s pursuit of hotel developers and year-round tourism, amid growing concern about the city centre’ s ability to cope with the numbers flocking during peak periods, declining numbers of local residents in the face of the growth of Airbnb, and the sustainability of being a global tourism destination in the midst of an escalating climate crisis.
The scale of the crisis facing the city’ s existing hotels was brought into sharp focus this week when a new report revealed that Ed inburgh had seen a dramatic slump in the performance of its hotels, with room rates plummeting by nearly twothirds. russell Imrie, spokesman for the Edinburgh Hotels Association, said :" Edinburgh is at a crossroads in terms of tourism. The question is whether the city and the industry will work together to illustrate its value and future potential for Edinburgh’ s future success and reinforce the current foundations for future sustainable growth.
“To give recovery a chance, hotels still in the development stage should be pa used to allow existing bed stock to utilise any increase in demand as recovery starts. Hotels which are already under construction must continue to completion. However, new additional supply should not start until the tourism market recover y has started and stability is returning.”
A new report on post- pandemic Edinburgh, compiled by the heritage group the Cockburn Association states how the“dramatic, global impacts” of the pandemic meant there was a pressing need to “reimagine the future of Edinburgh.”
Chair Cliff Hague said: “Overtourism was a problem, but once the industry was brought to a halt in the spring it became clear that economic over-reliance on tourism was also a problem.
"We firmly believe that a kneejerk attempt to 'get back to normal ,' to recover by reheating the growth trajectory of the past decade, would be a dangerous strategy.
"What has not changed is the climate emergency - any recovery that does not address that is no recover y at all. The public health crisis has provided insights into what will happen if existential threats are treated as something that can be ignored until they stare us in the face."
However Roddy Smith, chief executive of business group Essential Edinburgh, said:
“The pandemic is having a massive impact on the city centre. We all knew that change was under way but the pandemic may well have accelerated the move away from just a retail-led landscape. Princes Street will need a varied mix of high quality retail and hospitality, accommodation, office, attractions and residential."