The Scotsman Bulletin Friday September 06 2024 #TouristTax

The Scotsman

Scotsman editor Alan Young hears from specialist writer Alison Campsie on the proposals to introduce a tourist tax

Transcript

00:00ALAN YOUNG Hello and welcome to the Scotsman's Daily

00:03Bulletin for Friday. I'm Alan Young, I am editor of the Scotsman. I'm joined today by

00:09our specialist writer Alison Campsey to take a look at some of the main headlines. Hi,

00:13Alison.

00:14ALISON CAMPSEY Good morning, how are you?

00:15ALAN YOUNG Good. Happy that it's Friday. Let's have a

00:18look at the front page. And you can see there why Alison is here. We are leading on her

00:25exclusive today which is around plans for a new tourist tax to target both cruise ships

00:33and also potentially motorhomes. That's a hot topic in the Highlands in particular.

00:39I will mention at the top of the page their disappointment for Scotland. Heartbreaking

00:44really after fighting back against Poland to lose 3-2. We dissect the result in today's

00:51edition and also look ahead to the trip to Portugal over the weekend. So, Alison, talk

01:00us through today's story firstly.

01:02ALISON CAMPSEY Hi, so this story I suppose you could say

01:05is perhaps in a long time coming. We know that tourism in Scotland is getting bigger

01:12and we know it's kind of changing as well. And I think that's kind of been witnessed

01:18probably since the pandemic when people started to really get into the idea of getting motorhomes

01:25and getting away and hitting the road and heading to sort of like beautiful places.

01:30But so many people had the same idea. You've kind of now got really big clusters of motorhomes,

01:35particularly in the Highlands and Islands. Understandable to some degree, but it comes

01:41with challenges. So, you've seen this big growth of motorhome use and as well there's

01:47been a big growth in cruise ships coming into Scotland and there's been a lot of economic

01:51development around ports to kind of boost availability of berths and berths for bigger

01:58ships. So, you've seen like expansion on the Isle of Lewis, you've seen expansion at Greenock

02:06and Cruise Scotland has estimated that one million people will come in to Scotland on

02:12a cruise ship this year. So, you're talking about huge amounts of people. Now, with people

02:19generally come problems, particularly when you're talking about people in large amounts.

02:26So, authorities all over Scotland at local and national level, at government level, are

02:32really wondering how to manage this kind of growth in these areas of tourism. So, we have

02:40the so-called tourist tax or the transient visitor levy, which has been passed by Parliament

02:47and that will allow councils to set a percentage charge on overnight stays in Scotland. But

02:54crucially, this levy doesn't apply to most motorhomes or to cruise ship passengers. They

03:00were left out of this legislation and they were left out because it was actually seen

03:04as really difficult to how do you kind of like track a motorhome user who might be going

03:09through several local authority areas and the same with cruise ships as well. They might

03:15stop at Edinburgh before heading up to Cromarty Forest before going to Orkney. So, how do

03:20you manage that? So, the transient visitor levy, which has been passed, as I say, doesn't

03:26apply really, broadly speaking, to motorhomes and cruise ship passengers. So, they're now

03:32looking at bringing in separate legislation to deal with both these groups. And so, there's

03:37a meeting at COSLA today with the 32 local authorities to discuss how a cruise ship levy

03:44and a motorhome user levy might work in practice in Orkney. Yesterday, Mairi Gougeon met with

03:51cruise industry leaders and with politicians to talk specifically about the cruise market.

03:57Orkney, it should be noted, is the most popular destination in Scotland for cruise ship arrivals

04:04and really deals with some massive, massive ships coming in. Interestingly as well, I

04:11thought like Scotland's become more popular in recent times for cruise ships because of

04:17the war in Ukraine, all the Baltic ports have become off limits. So, Scotland has become

04:22very much more attractive as a safe destination. But the pressures on infrastructure, roads,

04:30historic sites caused by these really kind of fast pulses of people coming into ports

04:37has to be tackled. And where do you get the money from? We know public spending is in crisis.

04:42Orkney said its finances are at a breaking point. So, it does see this kind of levy on

04:47cruise ship passengers as being a really important source of income to help pay for the mitigation

04:52measures that are needed from mass tourism. Indeed. It really is a double-edged sword,

04:58I guess, and a balancing act because the last thing any local authorities will want to do

05:03is to drive away tourists because it's so important economically to the highlands in

05:12particular. But that does have to be balanced against the people who live there.

05:19Well, that's it. I mean, every week you're writing and seeing information about communities

05:24who feel really aggrieved that their sort of peaceful, lovely villages where they're very,

05:30very happy are literally being overrun in some cases by motorhome users who perhaps,

05:36and certainly not in all cases, but there's definite recorded instances of motorhome users

05:42not acting respectfully or responsibly when they're visiting these places and perhaps just

05:47don't have the knowledge on how to be a good motorhome visitor. There's various codes and

05:54rules surrounding motorhomes and they're quite sort of disparate. So to bring them together

06:00in sort of easy, accessible information is perhaps something that's not been done

06:06super successfully well, perhaps the messaging hasn't got through the way it should.

06:10And the thing about motorhomes as well, and I'm speaking fairly generally here,

06:15you want to get in your van, you want to hit the road, you don't really want to bother about

06:19anything. You know, you just sort of think, yeah, I've got, you know, my stuff's in the back,

06:24I'm heading north, happy days, but actually with that, there does come quite a bit of responsibility

06:30and I don't know really how much that's filtered through to people.

06:34A really interesting story today, Alison, thanks for talking us through it. You can read it now

06:40at Scotsman.com and in today's paper if you are on the site. Please do keep an eye on it for all

06:48the very latest news and analysis. If you can, do subscribe, then you can read and watch everything

06:54that we do. And if you're out and about today, do pick up a copy of the paper from me and from Alison.

06:59It's bye for now. Bye.

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