NATIONAL TREASURES
The Scottish Government needs to look after our tourist attractions
Nothing lifts the spirits more than news of Scotland’s ever-rising visitor numbers. Reports of booming festival attractions and record revenues at destination events are a great reassurance. We’re still a magnet, a class act on the world stage. Scotland, despite its political turbulence and North Sea oil-related worries, is still pulling ’em in, a great place to be and to see.
We work very hard at this. Every year we have something on in our towns and cities, our Highland villages and beautiful islands. From great sports events, such as the Commonwealth Games and the Ryder Cup, to retail destinations and spruced-up self-catering cottages, Scotland pulls out the stops. Our airwaves crackle with activities to attract visitors in off-peak months and spread the benefits of big one-off spectaculars.
These efforts are unstinting. And they deserve applause, because tourism brings in revenue and keeps tens of thousands in work.
Tourism is of vital importance to our economy. Total tourist spend is thought to generate £10 billion of economic activity in the wider Scottish supply chain and contributes £5 billion to Scottish GDP – almost 5% of the total. Employment is put at 211,000 – accounting for around 8.5% of the total.
However, who’s keeping score? Are we going backwards or forwards? Is the impact of all this activity being properly measured?
This matters – for future event planning, for fresh expansion and investment, and for tourism policy in general, to ensure we keep pace in an ever more competitive world.
So searching questions need to be asked here. Because when you examine recent Scottish Government figures, it looks as if we’re not doing well at all. In fact, we’re going backwards.
Tourism’s main impact on the economy should emerge via the ‘accommodation and food services’ sector of the government’s economic statistics. But as recent analysis from Fiscal Affairs Scotland points out, latest government figures show that this sector is the slowest
growing services sector in the economy, with the sole exception of education, where school pupil numbers are falling.
On a longer historical comparison, it has grown by just 6.5% since 1998, compared with more than 40% at the UK level.
Tourism’s contribution to the economy looks to have peaked in Scotland in 2006, since when it has fallen by 10%. This is versus a 5% rise across the UK.
Taking another measure, the government’s fourth-quarter GDP data shows t he chain-weighted index for accommodation and food is down by 3.6% on the 2008 pre-financial crisis level. Separately, analysis of real-terms growth in GDP between 2012 and 2014 shows the distribution, hotels and restaurants sector in Scotland grew by 3.4%, compared with 8.5% for the UK. Can it really be the case that the sector has trailed the UK so markedly?
The report on tourism by accountants Deloitte calculates the visitor economy is worth £11.6 billion to Scotland and is expected to grow to £23 billion by 2025. VisitScotland points out that the government figures are narrower in their definition of tourism and that is why it reflects a different picture. Deloitte uses a wider definition of tourism and its ripple effect on the economy, including the tourism contribution to events, retail, creative arts, and so on. And, looking at the overall visitor numbers to the UK released in late May, Scotland does appear to be holding up well.
Visits to the UK by overseas residents rose for the fourth consecutive year in 2014, up 5.2% to 34.4 million, the highest since records began in 1961. Earnings from visits to the UK reached a record level of spending – £21.8 billion, up by 2.8%. London dominates the figures, with 17.4 million overnight visits, up 0.6%. Overnight visits to the rest of England grew by 5.1%. But Scotland, helped by those big sports events – and international journalists covering the referendum – saw the greatest growth, with visits up 11.5%. And visitor spending rose by just over 10% to £1.8 billion, compared with a 1.4% rise in spending by visitors to England, outside London (to £7.3 billion).
Malcolm Roughead, VisitScotland’s chief executive, stresses the wider benefits, arguing that without tourism our wine and spirits industry would lose £116 million, that some £15 million less would be spent on bread and biscuits, and £700 million less on transport. Tourism, he reminds us, pays the wages of more people than the whisky, oil and gas industries combined. ‘It cannot be quantified in just the number of hotels in Scotland – it’s the ripple effect it causes that places it at the heart of the Scottish economy,’ he says.
‘ Tourism pays the wages of more people than the whisky, oil and gas industries combined’
‘ Edinburgh Castle was the most visited paid-for attraction outside London’
However, while welcoming the figures, the Federation of Small Business Scotland has warned that ‘there’s a mountain to climb’ to reach the government target of increasing visitor spending to £5.5 billion by 2020.
And there are other areas where tourismrelated figures have been questioned. Doubts have arisen over recently published figures for 2014 from the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions (ALVA). The report states there was an increase of 6.5% in total numbers, compared with 2013, and that ‘Scottish attractions had the greatest increase, of almost 10%, followed by London, with 7%’. ALVA claimed the Commonwealth Games ‘didn’t just fly the flag for Glasgow, but drew visitors to Scotland’s attractions; the National Museum of Scotland was not only the most visited free attraction in Scotland, with 1,639,509 visitors, but was the most visited museum outside of London. The Scottish National Gallery (SNG) – saw an outstanding 39% increase.’ Edinburgh Castle was the most visited paid-for attraction outside London, with 1.48 million visitors – a 4% increase.
A Commonwealth Games effect on visitors to the Scottish National Gallery? Really? Or might it be due to changes in the way the figures are gathered? Economist Tony Mackay, of Inverness-based Mackay Consultants, drew different conclusions, specifically in relation to the surge in numbers in Scotland and the impact of the Commonwealth Games.
He doubts the 39% or 360,000 increase in visitors to the SNG had anything to do with the Commonwealth Games. ‘More relevantly,’ he writes, ‘a footnote to the table states, “SNG switched from manual counting to electronic counting in April 2014 and therefore uplift in figures is partly due to this”.’ If the National Gallery statistics are excluded, the increase in visitors at the Scottish attractions was about 6%, compared with 6.5% for the UK as a whole.
Separately, eyebrows have been raised in the capital over claims that Edinburgh’s Christmas festival generated more than £200 million for the city. The assertion that the funfair and Christmas market are worth more than other festivals, including Hogmanay and the Fringe, struggles to pass the common sense test.
Looking at the bigger picture, a useful first step would be for the Scottish Government to compile data giving a more comprehensive picture of tourism in the country. A sector that contributes £5 billion to our economy surely deserves it.