Over-tourism

Peter Irvine identifies the pernicious effects of overtourism in Scotland (“Edinburgh’s Hogmanay creator warns city in grip of ‘overtourism’ crisis”, The Scotsman, 20 March).

No-one would deny that, properly managed, tourism offers cultural and economic benefits to both visitors and host communities.

Difficulties arise, however, when it degrades into a no-holds-barred cash crop economy based on a largely extractive investment model as is now the case in Edinburgh, where the current policy seems to be that the Athens of the North should become a tacky tartan Benidorm.

Edinburgh’s theme park approach also feeds on the spin-offs from Harry Potter and Outlander, spawning a faux history view of the past which led one young visitor from the US to ask me: “Hey, is Potterrow named for Harry Potter?”

It is no surprise that the three most contentious recent planning disputes in the city are tourism-related, with global backers who will be harvesting profits which will be siphoned off to such places as Los Angeles, North Carolina and Florida.

These particular extractive investments will also damage the city’s built heritage by (1) raising a ‘copper spiral’ hotel in the New Town which would, arguably, have a problem getting a planning consent on Las Vegas strip; (2) desecrating one of the world’s most important neo-classical buildings, the former Royal High School, and (3) inserting a grossly overscaled hotel beside the city’s Carnegie Library, cutting off its views and plunging it into darkness.

This business model brings high risks. For example, Chinese tourist numbers overtook those of America and Germany six years ago, but this is a trade that has been effectively weaponised by the Beijing government, as witness

the collapse in Chinese visitors to Paris when that city honoured the Dalai Lama in 2009. Moreover, the Chinese economy is proving to be anything but recession-proof, which hardly bodes well for the future.

The fact that, according to

the most recent figures, hotel bookings were down 2.1 per cent may even be our canary in the coal mine. In seeking to defend Scotland the Brand, Mr Irvine is merely stating the obvious.

DAVID J BLACK Glanville Place, Edinburgh