Independence: Tourism in Scotland in the 21st Century
Rory MacLellan
Introduction
Scotland has a distinct identity within the UK to the extent that internationally it has a higher recognition factor than many nation states. In spite of greater devolution of powers in the past decade, however, Scotland remains a region rather than an inde-pendent country. How the move towards greater autonomy and the difference between international image and political reality has affected tourism in Scotland is the focus of this chapter. The chapter describes the context within which political changes have taken place in Scotland and focuses on public policy and support structures for tourism pre and post re-establishment of the Scottish Parliament in 1999.
The thorny issue of where tourism fits into the political process has been identified by several authors (Hall, 2000; Lennon and Seaton, 1998; MacLellan and Smith, 1998) and this has vexed tourism policy makers in Scotland for decades. The need for a central organisation for tourism, such as an National Tourism Organization (NTO), has now been accepted throughout the world (Pearce, 1992; Jeffries, 2001) and destinations with national aspirations such as Scotland have embraced the NTO model in spite of there being a British Tourist Authority representing the nation state (UK).
Historical context and political structures
Scotland constitutes around one third of the area of the UK but has only 9% of its popula-tion (5.1 million). Located to the north of England, it is peripheral in both European and UK terms resulting in accessibility and transportation challenges. However the combina-tion of relatively low populacombina-tion density and remoteness affords Scotland advantages in the quality and variety of its natural environment. The tou rism identity of Scotland has traded on images of romantic scenery, mountains, glens and lochs, interspersed with castles and rural villages, although in reality, most tourism takes place in the major cities of Scotland. The Greater Glasgow conurbation represents one of the UK’s large urban agglomerations with around 1.65 million people and has become a successful business and retail tourism destination in its own right. The capital city Edinburgh has a population of only 530,000 but as the historic centre of government arts and culture has established itself as one of the most successful arts festival cities in the world.
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According to an official government briefing document (Dewer, 2007) tourism is impor-tant to Scotland for primarily economic reasons: spending by tourists in Scotland amounts to over £4bn annually; the spending supports around 200,000 jobs; a disproportionate number of these jobs are located in rural areas where employment opportunities are limited.
Table 6.1: Tourist visits to Scotland 2008. Source: VisitScotland 2008
Origin Trips
2008 (m) Nights
2008 (m) Spend
2008 (£m)
Scotland 5.84 19.19 927
England 5.74 23.14 1682
Northern Ireland 0.36 1.16 127
Wales 0.21 0.70 76
Total UK tourism 12.15 44.19 2812
Total overseas tourism 2.48 19.34 1235
Total 14.63 63.53 4047
In 2008, around 15 million tourists took overnight trips to Scotland and the annual spend was over £4.0 billion. Scottish tourism contributes 11% of the Scottish service sector economy compared to 9% for the UK as a whole. The UK as a whole accounts for 83% of tourism trips to Scotland with overseas tourism accounting for the remaining 17%.
Although the European Union is the largest overseas market with six of the top ten inbound markets sharing the single European currency, the USA remains the biggest single national market with 21% of overseas spend.
Scotland’s identity has been created, shaped and branded in conjunction with the development of tourism. Scottish tourism marketing has been described as capturing the essence of its brand from its history (Yeoman et al., 2005); history has created the sense of place, (Durie et al., 2005) critical to promoting Scotland. A conscious effort has been made to create a national image, ‘a collective and united way of describing Scotland to the world’ (McCrone et al., 1995). From the re-imaging of Scotland by Sir Walter Scott and in particular the visit of the reigning monarch George IV in the 1800s (Butler, 1985), the branding of Scotland has sought to play down the less attractive characteristics attributed to Scotland and the Scots and place the emphasis more on the changed, reformed nature of a rapidly changing country, both economically, politically and socially; but at the same time without losing the dramatic, romantic, wild imagery of the primarily Highland natural landscape. The process of image creation may be far from an accurate or authentic representation of Scotland and many have criticised the
‘tartanising’ of Scottish culture (Butler, 1998). However the re-imaging, started in the early 19th century by Scott and others has been successful to the extent that most Scots today find it hard to separate fact from fiction in their reflections on themselves and Scotland. Recent Hollywood interpretations of Scotland through films like Highlander and Braveheart have reinforced this romantic, but less than accurate, portrayal. The result is that Scotland has a largely positive international recognition factor that gives it a competitive advantage in an increasingly crowded tourism marketplace.
Political changes pre-1999 devolution and the implications for tourism
Scottish tourism changed significantly in the last quarter of the twentieth century, in terms of product offering and visitor markets. Whilst trips to Scotland by overseas visitors increased from 620,000 in 1970 to over two million in 1998, trips by UK visi-tors declined over the same period from 12.3 million in 1970 to 9.8 million in 1998.
This reflects the virtual disappearance of the main UK holiday market, only partially compensated for by the rise in short-break tourism.
In terms of product, there were significant shifts in the volume and quality of accommo-dation stock, with the number of hotels increasing from just over 2000 in 1970 to 2500 in 1998. An indication of the upgrading of facilities is shown in the number of hotel bedrooms with en-suite facilities, increasing from 35% in 1970 to 87% in 1998. The changes in the visitor attraction sector have been almost as dramatic with substantial increases in the number and range over the same period and vast improvements in the quality of visitor facilities and interpretation. Employment in tourism related industries is estimated to have increased from 112,000 in 1970 to 177,000 in 1998.
Therefore the recent history of Scotland’s tourism industry has been one of almost steady progress and improvement, despite inconsistent periods in the late 1980s and late 1990s. These improvements may be attributed to a variety of factors from the public sector support systems to innovations of individual businesses. A review of the tourism industry in Scotland by Barrie (1999) lists some key factors contributing to the improve-ments in the 1990s including the renaissance of Glasgow and investment of £120 million in Edinburgh and Glasgow airports. Despite these improvements, several intractable factors remained as impediments to growth and prosperity through tourism including seasonality; lack of direct air access; service attitudes; price; and the ineffectiveness of the public agencies, in particular the Scottish Tourist Board (STB).
It is worth describing the public sector support mechanisms prior to Devolution (1999) as it is here that changes in policy would have their most immediate effect. It might be assumed that the advent of the Scottish Parliament would herald a greater degree of devolution in policy-making for tourism, however, by the late 1990s, most power had already moved north from Westminster, to Edinburgh (Day and MacLellan, 2000), although some responsibility for tourism promotion of Scotland remained with the British Tourist Authority. In almost every other respect, the public agencies involved in tourism in Scotland took orders from the Scottish Office in Edinburgh.
By the 1990s, the core responsibility for tourism rested with the national tourism organisation, the Scottish Tourist Board and the economic development agencies, Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise, although other important organisations had achieved a greater level of input to tourism policy-making (for example: Scottish Natural Heritage, Historic Scotland, Scottish Sports Council, Scottish Museums Council, Convention of Scottish Local Authorities). Tensions still existed regarding the division of responsibility for promoting tourism, although these had been largely resolved through measures taken at national and local levels. The Scottish Tourist Board gained the right to market itself overseas in 1993 in conjunction with the British Tourist Authority and locally the rationalisation in 1996 of the Area Tourist Board
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network, from an unwieldy 34 to a more manageable 14, had led to more cohesive and marketable tourist destinations.
The Scottish Tourist Board was viewed as the lead agency, however the Scottish Enterprise Network had the budget to make a difference, creating some tensions. The establishment in 1992 of the Scottish Tourism Co-ordinating Group by the Scottish Office, to oversee tourism policy implementation, went some way to resolve these. An important achievement of this agency was the development of the Strategic Plan for Scottish Tourism in 1994 to bring a more integrated approach to tourism support activi-ties of the public agencies (Smith, 1998). It is important to re-emphasise that responsibil-ity for addressing the problems of Scottish tourism was largely in the hands of Scottish agencies. Attempting to find unique Scottish tourism solutions to the unique Scottish problems is not new, however the advent of the Scottish Parliament in 1999 provided an ideal opportunity to take advantage of increased devolution.
The moment of devolution: the Scottish Parliament
The establishment of the Scottish Parliament in 1999 followed a lengthy period of debate on constitutional change in Scotland and a whirlwind period of action after the Labour UK election victory in 1997. As Hay (2007) points out, this gave Scotland the chance to rebrand Scottish Agencies to emphasise their Scottish roots: SportScotland, EventScotland, Creative Scotland and eventually VisitScotland.
Scotland was described as ‘one of the most centrally controlled (Scottish Office) polities in Europe’ (Fairley, 1999: 17). There was a requirement to redistribute powers in the hands of government agencies by recentralising policy expertise from quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations (quangos) to the new Scottish Parliament committees.
In addition, constitutional change was needed to devolve powers from Edinburgh to local authorities, placing more policy-making in local hands.
The broad political objectives for devolution and the establishment of the Scottish Parliament were twofold: first to create a new style of politics based on consensus and more representative of Scottish public opinion, (exemplified by the first government being a coalition); second, to enhance subsidiarity, devolution and decentralisation within Scotland. Power should flow from Westminster to the Scottish Parliament, then to local authorities, then to local communities. The committee system of the Parliament was intended as a device for holding the Executive to account, building policy expertise and overseeing procedures in parliament. The place of tourism in this structure provides some insight into how policy-making for tourism may be directed. Rather than a sepa-rate Department or Committee, with a sepasepa-rate Minister for Tourism, responsibility for tourism was placed within an already packed portfolio in the Department of Enterprise and Lifelong Learning (DELL).
Perhaps the greatest concern over tourism in Scotland was policy fragmentation at com-mittee level, where tourism related policy areas were spread across a range of comcom-mittees such as transport, considered remote from tourism. Cross-committee communication has improved but the administrative structure remains illogical and confusing and has
not led to a concentration of policy expertise. A separate Minister for Tourism may not be necessary but the problem of dispersed decision making in tourism has been exacerbated by its position in the Scottish Parliament. Rather than gaining a strong, unified voice for tourism, the past decade has seen contradictory policy-making, for example, transport policy acting as a barrier to visitors to rural areas, rural policies focusing on traditional primary industrial sectors, whilst tourism policies attempted to spread benefits into peripheral locations (MacLellan, 1999).
The post-devolution period has certainly seen tourism come under close scrutiny by successive ministers and administrations. Strategies have evolved and been refined depending on the prevailing policy mood and jargon: Tourism Framework For Action 2000 was followed by Tourism Framework for Action 2002-2005 and then Scottish Tourism: the Next Decade – a Tourism Framework For Change (Scottish Executive, 2006). Although a logical progression can be perceived in these documents, much of the subtext of the tourism strategies was the buck passing of responsibility. The public agencies recognised the need to pass the lead role to the private sector but challenges remained in forming a united industry view and tourism continues to rely on public sector support (Kerr, 2003).
Initially, inclusion of tourism matters in debates in the Scottish Parliament, before the publication of the New Strategy for Scottish Tourism February 2000 (Scottish Executive, 2000) broadly reflected the concerns of industry documented as part of the consultation exercise in 1999: the funding of Area Tourist Boards (ATB); high cost of fuel; Scotland being too expensive; lack of direct links (air and sea) to Scotland; opportunities of e-commerce. The subjects raised give an insight into opposition party views on tourism.
Views expressed by opposition parties on support mechanisms for tourism range from moderate calls to streamline structures, gain independence from the BTA, fund ATBs direct from the STB, to more radical changes such as having one separate Minister for Tourism and taking powers from the STB and passing them to the Scottish Enterprise Network (Kerr and Wood 1999).
A key concern in the post-devolution period has been the principal promotional agency, the STB. Lennon and Hay (2003) undertook a benchmarking study highlighting the core functions of a successful NTO but to many in the tourism industry in Scotland, the STB was a tainted organisation and an independent review of the STB was undertaken by PriceWaterhouseCoopers on behalf of the Scottish Executive and the STB. The results painted a picture of an organisation with tired staff, inadequate budgets, poor leadership and unclear objectives (Hay 2007). The Scottish Executive, seeing the need for changes in the political management of tourism, took the decision to restructure not only the STB but also the ATB structure and merge all ATBs into one organisation. In 2001 the name was changed from STB to VisitScotland, and in April 2005 became a single, country-wide comprehensive organisation managing all 120 Tourism Information Centres (TIC) in Scotland, with 14 regional offices and its own offices in London, Edinburgh and Inverness. It is now probably the world’s first fully integrated tourist board, providing a single contact point for all tourists and tourism businesses (Hay, 2007).
The publication of Scottish Tourism ‘The Next Decade – A Tourism Framework for Change’ (Scottish Executive, 2006) was another attempt to take a fresh look at tourism markets both globally and in Scotland, and possible market changes over the next decade.
It built on previous post-devolution strategies and set out what tourism and hospitality
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businesses, related sectors like transport and retail, and the public sector agencies which support them, needed to do to keep Scottish tourism growing sustainably.
In the introduction, the challenges that faced the industry in 2005 were highlighted.
Patricia Ferguson, Minister responsible for tourism stated: ‘A document like this can’t predict exactly what Scottish Tourism will look like in 10 years’ time…. We want Scotland to be one of the world’s foremost tourism destinations by 2015’ (Scottish Executive, 2006: 3).
A key element of the revised strategy was the overarching ambition to grow tourism revenues to Scotland by 50% in the ten years to 2015 and make the country one of the world’s foremost tourism destinations. This reflected greater recognition of tourism as an economic engine in Scotland and confidence in tourism growth, but the specific 50%
target was not based on rigorous research or specific visitor number projections, but on focus group hype. Nevertheless the framework marks a shift in policy leadership, placing the ball firmly in the private sector court with emphasis placed on the need for business to take the lead and the importance of entrepreneurial attitudes to improve product development and innovation and to match customer needs (Scottish Executive, 2006).
The strategy also acknowledges priorities in the public sector domain: the critical importance of access to and around Scotland; the need for an integrated marketing effort; and a sustainable approach to tourism development– economically, socially and environmentally. However the framework makes it clear that it is the industry that needs to make these changes with the public sector agencies, such as VisitScotland, playing a supporting role. This was agreed, in part, by industry, although the Scottish Tourism Forum (STF), the lead private sector umbrella organisation, notes this is more a partnership:
‘The TFFC was developed as a vehicle to remove barriers, build successful strategies and partnerships and to provide a focus for the industry to work in partnership with the public sector’, and they recognise the critical importance and difficulties they face in bringing all their members on board ‘…there is an industry driven desire to bring together a wide and sometimes apparently divided sector into a united industry working together to unlock the huge economic potential that clearly exists within tourism in Scotland.’
(Herbert, 2009: 1).
In spite of the inter-sectoral tensions it is clear that tourism policy-making in Scotland had entered a more mature phase where stakeholders acknowledge the value of their partners and the need to compromise and get on with the job rather than reverting to old habits of a blame culture. The devolved powers focused attention within the policy-making arena of Scotland, on Edinburgh rather than London and in a relatively small country where organisations and personalities brush shoulders regularly in close proximity. The number and quality of debates on tourism in the Scottish Parliament reflect the gradual improvement in understanding of the key issues and a more pragmatic attitude to policy-making (Scottish Parliament, 2007; 2008).
One might expect the election of a minority administration led by the Scottish National Party (SNP) to place greater emphasis on political independence rather than matters such as tourism, however, the new administration recognised that tourism was a core
concern of the Scottish people, one that had already received a lot of attention and a policy area where they might gain some positive publicity. Another review of tourism was quickly initiated whereby the new Minister, Jim Mather gave his resounding sup-port to the sector:
There is a new realisation that tourism is economically important in providing jobs and revenue, in maintaining and broadcasting the brand and in attracting people to Scotland who will invest, return and buy Scottish goods and services.
Indeed, there is a new awareness that we are all in the tourism business.
(Scottish Parliament, 2007: 1).
A subsequent government document further clarified the important position of tourism within Scotland, where it was listed as one of the six main priority industries identified by the Scottish Government’s enterprise agencies as key growth sectors. A central compo-nent of the strategy repeats that the Scottish Government and the tourism industry should adopt an ‘ambition’ of increasing gross tourism revenues by 50% (in real terms) by 2015, using the revenue figures for 2005 as the baseline (Scottish Parliament, 2008: 1).
One might expect an administration led by a party with independence for Scotland as its raison d’être to place greater emphasis on nationalistic promotions such as the recent ‘Year of Homecoming’ event throughout 2009. A counter argument points to the sensitivities involved in an overly Scottish nationalistic image: one must be careful not to alienate neighbours in a United Kingdom, particularly as they constitute the main visitor market for the Scottish tourism product. Nonetheless most new SNP initiatives related to tourism have been minor and innocuous, such as the proposed slogan ‘Welcome to Scotland’and the branding of partnership working towards a unified approach to selling Scotland as ‘Team Scotland’. On the one hand, critics suggest the SNP have run out of ideas, on the other, why fix what is not broken: tourism policy-making in Scotland had already received more attention in the previous decade than ever before and tourism support organisations had undergone extensive restructuring without the opportunity to ‘bed in’.
Discussion: the place of tourism in political changes — issues and controversies
Post devolution, tourism in Scotland has certainly been given an elevated position in public policy if the number of enquiries, benchmarking studies and strategy documents produced is any indicator. Although there is evidence of partial success the jury is still out regarding whether over the last 10 years, Scottish administrations have resolved decades-old barriers to tourism development or met core targets (the ambitious 50%
growth aspiration). The same issues, seemingly examined in some depth in 2000, still seem to be key concerns in political debate and there is still a lack of understanding of the fundamentals of tourism and repeated lists of action points with little real evidence of change.
However, in spite of recent concerns regarding failure to reach tourism growth targets it would be unfair to be too critical of progress in tourism policy-making and development in the post-devolution era. It is inevitable that progress will not all be smooth and that
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there will be battles fought and differences in opinion in the new political scene. If anything, a key criticism might be an over-confidence and ambition in the power of tourism to transform Scotland’s economy, something that was clearly not evident before 1999. One might conclude that this reflects the maturing of tourism policy-making and the recognition of its value to Scotland, not only in a narrow economic sense but also in terms of giving justification in the minds of Scots to valuing their culture, natural and built environment. Pride in Scotland has gradually shifted from celebrating their ability to make things and trade, (industry and commerce) to pride in the beauty, scenery and historic interests of Scotland.
The maturing process over the past decade has also affected stakeholder relationships in tourism. The culture has shifted from blame to co-operation and recognition of the need for public and private sectors to form partnerships. Although there are still elements of distrust and misunderstandings, the public sector no longer acts as ‘big brother’ dictating tourism strategies from above and the private sector, strongly encouraged by government, has begun to take the lead in tourism development. At last a more cohesive voice can be heard with organisations like STF providing a balanced positive way forward.
The effect of devolving powers from London to Edinburgh has made some differences in tourism policy-making, generally without undermining the positive relationship between the key British tourism agency, VisitBritain, and the key Scottish tourism promotion organisation, VisitScotland. As mentioned earlier, Scotland relies heavily on visitors from England so Scottish nationalistic rhetoric must not reduce the strong brand position of Scotland in UK and overseas markets. On balance, evidence suggests that the marketing of Scotland has benefited since 1999, although perhaps not to the extent envisaged in the heady days of the new Scottish Parliament in 2000. The greatly improved tourism promotion budget has probably had a greater impact on growth in visitor numbers rather than any raising of profile attributable to devolution.
The restructuring of tourism support arrangements within Scotland has been less harmo-nious, in particular the reorganisation of the ATB network experiencing greater control from VisitScotland. There will always be tensions between national, regional and local organisations and there is evidence to suggest Scotland has some way to go in the evolu-tion of tourism support structures. The growth in prominence of the private sector has been more than matched by the strengthening powers and confidence of the leading cities in Scotland, notably Edinburgh and Glasgow. Their autonomy in promoting themselves as places not only to visit but also to work, live, study and invest cannot be over-ruled by VisitScotland. Their brands as destinations are arguably more cohesive and as strong if not stronger than Scotland as a whole. New hybrid organisations have emerged in 2009 to lead the cities, for example Destination Edinburgh Marketing Alliance, that explores new working mechanisms and challenges ‘top down’ national tourism strategies. The concern over public sources of funds for tourism development is another thorny issue that has yet to be resolved. Heated debates over options for national and local tourism taxes continue without a clear way forward emerging.
There has also been a number of independent Destination Management Organisations (DMOs) formed in rural areas, acting independently of VisitScotland and the reorganised tourism network. Ironically these have been encouraged and supported by VisitScotland’s public sector partner, the economic development agency, Scottish Enterprise, through its promotion of a DMO toolkit. This is further evidence of the anomaly of separating