Scots tourist boards hit crisis point
Two of Scotland's newly formed regional tourist boards are in crisis just months since their creation, causing widespread concern among local hoteliers.
Aberdeen hoteliers have been compelled to donate £1,000 as a token of their support to the Aberdeen and Grampian Tourist Board, which has a £900,000 budget shortfall following cuts in its funding (News, 13 June).
In disarray, too, is the Highlands of Scotland Tourist Board (HOST), also formed in April, following the sudden resignation of its marketing expert, Tim Steel, after just two months in the job.
The funding crisis in the Aberdeen and Grampian area means a number of Tourist Information Centres (TICs) have closed.
A taskforce brought in to deal with the budget deficit has also announced plans to close the area office in Banff - prompting the tourist board's chairman, Sydney Mair, to resign in protest.
Nick White, resident director of the Craigellachie Hotel in Banffshire, told Caterer: "I think the Scottish Office has to admit that it got the funding system wrong when switching over to the new tourist boards."
He added: "In the long term, funding must go to them more directly, but in the meantime we as individual companies must do all we can to help."
Highland hoteliers are equally dismayed at the departure of marketing head Mr Steel and have called for an urgent meeting with tourist board officers.
"He seemed such a wonderful person to take on. Conversely, it must be a disaster to have lost him," said Mike Smith, chairman of the Inverness Hotels Association.
Mr Smith said that HOST members had as yet received no marketing plan for late 1996 and 1997. But a HOST statement said its marketing strategy was already formed, and chief executive Anne Mearns would direct its implementation until a new marketing head was recruited.
Highlands hoteliers are also upset at the decision not to have elected area representatives. They claim meetings are shambolic, without proper structure or minutes.
