The Press and Journal (Inverness, Highlands, and Islands)
The baton is being passed from medical clinicians to the business community
The coronavirus crisis, from which we are cautiously emerging, has been the worst ordeal faced by Britain and the world since the end of the war in 1945. Like that previous catastrophe it has cost a huge number of lives and devastated the global economy.
On the upside, it has shown, in the heroism of our health service professionals, that people in this country can still rise to any challenge adversity may throw at them. Now, as the focus shifts from containing the health emergency to repairing the economic damage, the baton is being passed from medical clinicians to the business community.
A true entrepreneur recognises any crisis, however serious, as an opportunity in disguise. But we have a mountain to climb. GDP in the UK fell by 2% in Q1 of this year – in March the drop was 5.8% – as the effects of the pandemic set in. Retail footfall fell by 80% in April and by 73% in May.
What is the way forward? Firstly, we need to draw upon and cultivate the sense of community the pandemic has created. We really are all in this together and we’re all potentially part of the solution. For example, we can encourage one another to buy locally, supporting north-east companies and brands, putting cash back into the tills of our region’s economy as fast as possible, in the hospitality and agricultural industries as well as others.
During lockdown last month more than 3,500 consumers used the supportlocal.scot online directory, created by industry body Scotland Food & Drink, to source quality local foods and drinks. Online initiatives in the north-east such as Foodie Quine helped people find local food for home delivery.
Here in the north-east 22,000 jobs depend on the food and drink industry, which accounts for more than 20% of Scotland’s output in this sector. Local support is vital. We’re well placed to give that support since average household income in Aberdeenshire is around £5,000 higher than for the UK.
When hotels and restaurants resume service local customers will be their first resource. The agricultural sector not only supplies top-class food, it interacts with the hospitality industry in emerging areas such as agritourism.
These developing areas also include wellness and adventure experiences, alongside more traditional sectors such as golf, whisky and heritage tourism. Although this year is likely to see a drastic reduction in overseas visitors, of the 15.5 million people who visited Scotland last year, nearly 80% came from across the UK. That market can be retained and expanded.
The National Action Plan published by the Scottish Tourism
Emergency Response Group, chaired by VisitScotland, sees day visits and “staycationing” as the focus of Scottish tourism when restrictions are lifted. VisitAberdeenshire has launched an online “virtual postcard” showing the attractions of the region, under the slogan “Aberdeenshire will wait”.
Aberdeenshire is home to a national park, 263 castles, 79 “Taste our Best” restaurants, 55 golf courses, 10 cultural festivals, eight distilleries, five ski centres and the state-of-the-art P&J Live conference and events centre. With overseas travel problematic and some destinations still quarantined, the prospects are promising for UK holidaymakers to flock to the northeast, fingers-crossed in terms of the weather.
We must also harness the spirit of cooperation fostered by the pandemic to the practicalities of economic recovery. This is an opportunity to expand the business-to-business (B2B) element that underpinned the original drive to buy north-east. Competition is essential in business; but collaboration and complementarity are crucial too.
Post-pandemic supply chain disruption can be repaired by substituting local procurement. There’s an opportunity too for northeast firms to forge a new supply chain with overseas firms now wary of relying on China and other distant suppliers.
B2B is high-value, high-volume business: in the United States 72% of companies with 500 or more employees are in this sector.
It works for SMEs too, which in this country are increasingly “matesourcing” by seeking IT problemsolving and purchasing advice services from family and friends. This kind of back-to-basics capitalism is just one of the ways businesses can pull themselves up by their bootstraps to recover customers and markets after this terrible pandemic.