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Scott Begbie: High hotel prices across Scotland are doing country a disservice

Travel deals galore before lockdown, none to be had now, even though the world is almost back to normal.

Staying overnight in a Scottish city shouldn't cost the earth. Image: Dragon Images/Shutterstock
Staying overnight in a Scottish city shouldn't cost the earth. Image: Dragon Images/Shutterstock

You know that thing about being a tourist in your own country – about looking at the land through the eyes of a visitor to discover things you never knew?

Well, I’ve given it a good go and I have, indeed, discovered something: I cannot afford to be a tourist in Scotland because the hotels are ludicrously overpriced.

Take Edinburgh, for example. At the weekend, we fancied a wee break to the capital and priced up some of the cheaper options we’ve enjoyed in the past. The sort of Hub or Premier Inn deals that you used to be able to pick up for something like £70-or-so a night.

Yeah, try almost £300. That’s what it would have skinned us had we wanted to stay overnight in Embra on Saturday. I mean, that’s getting on for a week in the sun territory.

So, instead, we made it an awayday: down on the first train, home on the last. Although having to duck out of a world-class city at 9.30pm is hardly making the most of it, now, is it?

Rather than relaxing with even more margaritas in a swish Mexican, followed by nightcaps elsewhere, it was a trudge to Waverley and the better part of two hours with just a bottle of Ribena to keep that weekend feeling going.

Quick aside – why are you keeping the ban on booze going, ScotRail? Covid has abated, so isn’t it time you let us lovely folk make our own choices about train beers?

What’s that? Oh, the troublemakers? Sure. So deal with them, and let decent people enjoy themselves instead of treating all your passengers like louts-in-waiting.

But back to the matter in hand. Edinburgh isn’t the only place with eye-watering costs for a bed for a night. Glasgow is much the same, and even in smaller places, smaller hotels are quick to part you from a sizeable whack of your dosh for a doss.

England seems to offer better deals

However, cross the border and you are back in the realms of proper deals for hotels. Newcastle still has nice places for that 70-quid region which was always our benchmark of a reasonable price for a night’s stay. Which means we will be venturing there – or York – and bypassing Scotland.

Which is a damned shame, because our country is one of the most beautiful, fascinating, exhilarating places on the planet, and I’d rather spend my time and money here than anywhere else.

ScotRail has been taken back into public ownership, but it it wooing the public?
Hotel rooms looking too expensive? Last train home it is. Image: Jane Barlow/PA Wire

I can point to exactly when this jump in prices happened – when the pandemic began. Deals galore before lockdown, none to be had now, even though the world is almost back to normal. I refer you to prices in Englandshire.

Surely it is folly for Scottish hotels to be pricing me – and many others – out of the market, and madness for the tourism industry to allow such a high barrier to be put in the way of one our most important economic drivers?

Can we have our bargain breaks back, please?


Scott Begbie is a journalist and editor, as well as PR and comms manager for Aberdeen Inspired

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