At Random
Wrong to close tourist centres
IT IS a curse of the modern hi-tech age in which we live that machines are taking over many of the roles traditionally filled by people.
So it should probably come as little surprise that VisitScotland, the national tourism authority, is planning to close a number of its tourist information centres, particularly in remote and rural locations. However, I would argue it is wrong to do so.
Yes, some people will access the information they need online but thereby hangs an unfathomable condundrum: in the remote and rural locations, there is often no connection to the internet. And that causes a major headache for our vital tourism businesses. If people cannot access their information online, and the VisitScotland tourist centres are closed, where are visitors supposed to find the information they need about accommodation providers, hospitality businesses, activities, places and so on?
The bottom line is VisitScotland is trying to cut costs, but at what price?
It says a reduction in footfall at the tourist information centres over recent years is the reason for closing the units, which include Inveraray, Tarbert, Campbeltown, Tyndrum, Callander, Dunoon, Fort Augustus, Strontian, Castlebay and Lochmaddy.
I accept footfall may have dropped but would counter that these centres remain crucial to the tourism sector in Argyll, Kintyre, Lochaber and the isles.
The industry is vital to the economic prosperity of our area, being a major employer, and has been enjoying boom times in recent years.
Yet it is also a potentially fragile sector where a perception, spread by word of mouth, that we are not a good place to visit can have a lasting and deleterious impact.
We must do everything we can to give visitors the best experience possible and have them heading home cheering our area to the rafters.
And that means we need tourist information centres in all these key locations.
VisitScotland should reconsider these damaging closures.
Gaelic teacher should be granted a visa
THERE have been well-documented problems for a while now with the recruitment of people for key roles in some schools across our area.
Among the positions which have proved intractably difficult to fill is that of a Gaelic teacher at Bunessan Primary School on the isle of Mull.
It should not be so. Argyll and Bute Council has an excellent candidate who is desperately keen to teach the language to children at Bunessan.
The problem is she is Canadian and our Home Office in London has denied her a visa to work here.
You couldn’t make this one up.
Sìne Halfpenny studied at Sabhal Mór Ostaig on Skye and was the only applicant for the post at the new Gaelic unit, where children from three families have already been enrolled.
Sìne was offered the job subject to her visa application, but the Home Office had rejected her visa because ‘she did not meet the salary requirements as stipulated by the UK government’.
Scotland’s Deputy First Minister John Swinney has intervened by writing to the Home Office asking for the decision to be reversed.
But our useless Immigration Minister Caroline Nokes has refused even to consider the request because Mr Swinney is not an MP.
Ms Nokes and the Home Office need a lusty and swift kick up their collective rear end.
Reasons for blind date disasters
I DON’T know how many of you have ever been on a blind date but - from my email inbox - research has been carried out into why so many go wrong.
Among the reasons given are:
‘A much older woman than I expected turned up and her false teeth fell out!’
‘I arrived to find my blind date was my sister.’ ‘My blind date ate leaves from the doorway and the contents of the ashtray!’
‘I met a girl in a local pub as arranged, and she brought her parents.’
What do you think?
WRITE to me at mlaing@obantimes.co.uk or The Oban Times, Crannog Lane, Oban, PA34 4 HB.