Published on : Tuesday, April 28, 2020
Mr Ewing is also looking for more information about Westminster’s plans for marine tourism, which is particularly important to remote rural and island communities. Operators in this sector generally do not use business premises and therefore do not receive non-domestic rates relief.
Mr Ewing said that there remain significant issues of real concern to the tourism sector here in Scotland which can only be resolved by the United Kingdom Government.
There is a continuing issue with the lack of support for hospitality, licensed and leisure businesses with a rateable value over £51,000. Although not necessarily large businesses, these continue to carry substantial overheads even when closed; these costs are not mitigated by the holiday on business rates or the offset of payroll costs attributable to furloughing of staff. Indeed these overheads will threaten viability until lock-down ends and ‘normal’ trading can begin – even assuming that the business survives to that stage.
The marine tourism industry has emerged in recent years as increasingly important, particularly to remote rural and island communities in Scotland. Marine tourism is largely seasonal and so cannot look forward to any form of autumn/winter recovery as boats are de-commissioned by November and not taken to sea again until spring 2021. During this time there is no revenue, only storage and maintenance costs.
Tags: scottish tourism, Tourism