Half of Scottish tourism businesses say they have fewer bookings this summer, compared with 2019, a survey has found.
The Scottish Tourism Alliance (STA) questionnaire also found nearly 40% of firms reported spending was down, compared with last year.
Businesses believe the drop-off is due to the UK cost-of-living crisis, the appeal of outbound international travel, Scotland’s inability to compete internationally on value for money and people taking late decisions on holidays.
Increased positivity in sector
But Stephen Gow, general manager of The Chester Hotel in Aberdeen believes there are reasons for hospitality businesses to be positive, despite facing challenges.
Mr Gow added: “There are undoubtedly challenges facing all hospitality businesses.
“Increased costs and staffing issues continue, along with ongoing supply chain issues.
“But it’s important that we focus on what we have and what we can build on.
“Businesses with a breadth of service offerings will weather these obstacles more easily than those which have one stream of revenue only.”
Looking towards international bookings
More than 700 tourism businesses across Scotland took part in the survey, which ran from May 17 to June 8.
Some 60% of hotels, 43% of visitor attractions and 45% of bars, pubs, restaurants, cafes and takeaways said they were unable to trade effectively with their current level of staff.
A total of 55% of businesses reported heir international bookings for June-August were lower, compared with May 2019.
Mr Gow said: “We’re seeing buoyant business in many areas of our hotel at the moment.
“Our work to attract international golfers over the last three or four years is paying off, and we’re seeing groups of high spending golfers staying while they play the area’s many excellent courses.
“The return to events is also welcome for us.
“We had 300 guests last Friday at the Killer Heels and Cocktails event and almost 250 earlier that week for the food and drink awards.”
He added: “There’s no sign of these events tailing off, nor of people spending less when they are there.
“Businesses showed much innovation in 2020 and 21.
“Hospitality needs to keep an eye on trends and what their customers want, adapting their product to fit and investing where they can.”
Recovery on the way
STA chief executive Marc Crothall said: “The results of what has been one of our most robust surveys to date in terms of number of respondents and depth of data confirms very much what businesses have been telling us for many weeks now; recovery is happening, albeit at a much slower pace than anticipated and certainly not across all tourism sectors.
“The cost-of-living crisis is hitting Scotland’s tourism sector very hard on many levels.
“People are hesitant about committing to booking a break due to household financial challenges and uncertainty, consumer spend is down and with the rise of energy prices and supplier costs, many businesses are finding the level of recovery is almost static.
The cost-of-living crisis is hitting Scotland’s tourism sector very hard on many levels.”
Marc Crothall, STA chief executive.
“This impacts the ability for our tourism industry to remain competitive globally; we struggle to compete on price and we’re unable to retain and attract the quality of staff required to deliver the level of service demanded by today’s consumers.”
He continued: “The majority of our businesses cannot move beyond running to stand still, despite the fact that we’re now almost into the main tourist season.
“The transport disruption and planned rail strikes only make the challenge that much harder.
“The market is still fragile and businesses are finding it increasingly hard to trade their way into a place of sustainable recovery.”
‘Cost of living a concern’
VisitScotland chief executive Malcolm Roughead said: “The survey underlines some of the challenges facing the tourism and events industry.
“We know the move towards recovery is not consistent and businesses are experiencing a shortage of workers, while the cost of living is also a concern.
“There are, however, some encouraging signs with the return of international visitors and consumer research which shows more UK residents expect to take an overnight domestic trip between June and September than in 2021.”
Conversation