Independence and Scottish Tourism

[Trevor Hannant]

With the Scottish National Party being elected as the largest in the new Scottish Parliament, the prospect of a referendum on their flagship policy is greater than ever - provided they get to keep it as part of any coalition!

While there wil be endless debate over whether it is right for Scotland as a whole, whether we could afford it as a nation, whether we can use North Sea Oil to finance the country etc, we're looking for your thoughts on some of the lesser publicised aspects of a potential split from the United Kingdom.

With VisitedScotland.com being a tourism related site, we'd love to hear your views on how you think a split will affect the tourism industry (accommodation as well as attractrions!) - will it be for the better in some areas and worse in others? You tell us!

In having these debates we ask only one thing - respect the fact that everyone has an opinion and that they are entitled to give it whether you think it's right or wrong. Debate the points others raise and try and persuade them round to your point of view but let's keep it civil!

[Cliff]

My view is that the people of Scotland clearly don't trust or believe in the Scottish National Party enough to give them a full mandate.

What they have given them is one seat more than the Labour Party and that will only serve to give Scotland what is likely to be a minority SNP government which sadly won't give them any opportunity to show what they can actually do.

It will be interesting to see how many of their policies they now back down on as they attempt to do deals.

On a local govt level it seems they are in discussions with the Lib Dems to try to form a coalition on Edinburgh City Council by suggesting that they may concede on their opposition to the tram plans for Edinburgh, probably a main driver for many Edinburgh people voting against Labour! This of course is totally against what was their stated aim during their campaign! No sooner are they in their council seats than they are backtracking. All this will do IMHO is serve to turn people against them and prove that this election was indeed no more than a protest vote with normal service to be resumed next time around.

With a minority government incapable of passing anything of note or who are prepared to compromise their principles to do so, that may not take 4 years.

Some interesting times lie ahead methinks!

[Bruce]

Personally I think the Independence Referendum is out the window... although if (as many seem to believe) the vote will go against the SNP on that one why don't the other parties just allow it to go ahead? Having said that, so much can change between now and 2010

As for tourism, I can't really see that being affected much by the elected government of the country! ok so some people have stated that, while we are still in general governed from Westminster, they personally will not visit Scotland, but in all honesty does the tourist industry here suffer because of that? Not as far as I am concerned... but that's not to say there can't be some improvements made!

For example, why is it that so many major tourist attractions shut so early? One example I have is Our Dynamic Earth... if you're not there by 4:50 in July or August (3:50 the rest of the year... except Mondays and Tuesdays when its closed!) you can't get in! Its the same story in loads of other place (too many to name here!) so all that is left for the tourist is to look at the scenery (great if its sunny!) or go to the pub (also great if its sunny granted!)

So, trying to keep all this separate from politics (as its not an SNP/Labour/LibDem/Conservative/Other issue... delete depending on area of Scotland!), what possible solutions are there? Maybe keeping major attractions open until 8pm during the summer months and 6pm during the rest of the year?

Back to the politics though... as Cliff says, interesting times lie ahead!

[Cliff]

Personally I think the Independence Referendum is out the window... although if (as many seem to believe) the vote will go against the SNP on that one why don't the other parties just allow it to go ahead? Having said that, so much can change between now and 2010

As for tourism, I can't really see that being affected much by the elected government of the country! ok so some people have stated that, while we are still in general governed from Westminster, they personally will not visit Scotland, but in all honesty does the tourist industry here suffer because of that? Not as far as I am concerned... but that's not to say there can't be some improvements made!

For example, why is it that so many major tourist attractions shut so early? One example I have is Our Dynamic Earth... if you're not there by 4:50 in July or August (3:50 the rest of the year... except Mondays and Tuesdays when its closed!) you can't get in! Its the same story in loads of other place (too many to name here!) so all that is left for the tourist is to look at the scenery (great if its sunny!) or go to the pub (also great if its sunny granted!)

So, trying to keep all this separate from politics (as its not an SNP/Labour/LibDem/Conservative/Other issue... delete depending on area of Scotland!), what possible solutions are there? Maybe keeping major attractions open until 8pm during the summer months and 6pm during the rest of the year?

Back to the politics though... as Cliff says, interesting times lie ahead!

Good points on opening times Bruce and something that the tourist industry itself could surely look at without political involvement.

You visit the USA as an example and during the high tourist season everything is open til at least 10pm.

Longer opening hours could help create more jobs and greater income surely or is that too simplisitic?

Rumours of returning to border controls etc under a future SNP rule however may affect tourism in future?

[Bruce]

Longer opening hours could help create more jobs and greater income surely or is that too simplisitic?

I'm sure there will be some sort of profit/loss excuse (oops, I mean analysis of course!) made for sticking to the existing closing times... but for certain places (Edinburgh Castle for example) it could be as simple as leaving the gates open and allowing the tourists to look around without having access to any of the actual buildings!

Rumours of returning to border controls etc under a future SNP rule however may affect tourism in future?

Aye but who would be controlling the border? The Scots to keep certain people out of Scotland... or the English doing likewise the other way? Also, where would the border be... where it is now? or between the predominantly yellow/orange coloured northern part of the country and the mainly red/blue southern part?

[Willie_Dunn]

I'm sure there will be some sort of profit/loss excuse (oops, I mean analysis of course!) made for sticking to the existing closing times... but for certain places (Edinburgh Castle for example) it could be as simple as leaving the gates open and allowing the tourists to look around without having access to any of the actual buildings!


Aye but who would be controlling the border? The Scots to keep certain people out of Scotland... or the English doing likewise the other way? Also, where would the border be... where it is now? or between the predominantly yellow/orange coloured northern part of the country and the mainly red/blue southern part?

I will keep out of this one, but one thing sprung to mind when Cliff mentioned the USA.
The UK is part of the visa waiver scheme, this means you do not have to apply for a full visa (unless you have been a bad boy)
Now this cuts both ways making travel easy, if Scotland split we would not be part of this so amercan tourists would require a full visa and that is a pain and may put folk off.
Also we would need them pesky embassy's to do that.

[Trevor Hannant]

One of the biggest arguements from around the Devolution time was the cost of the new parliament white elephant. We're past arguing about that but I remember the Nats being pretty scathing in their criticism of it.

What I haven't seen from any quarter is the cost, not if independence itself but of the cost of trying to gain independence. For example, the whole financial plan is (or certainly was) based on using North Sea oil revenues as a source of Scotland's income. I can't see any way that Westminster will allow that to happen so naturally this will go to the courts, the Lords, the European Courts etc. - and how much is that gonna cost?!?

Let's assume that it doesn't happen (hope not tbh!) - how many millions is it going to cost just to get a final knockback 10 years down the line? The Nats complain about the cost of the building that will hosue them andtheir cronies for decades to come but don't think of the cost of trying to push through a ridiculous plan that will never come to fruition.

And who will suffer? Us, as individual taxpayers and businesses through higher taxes and anything else they can think of to recoup that money. Of those businesses, the tourist trade stands, in my opinion, to be the biggest losers! Mainstream businesses produce their output which is needed by us adn so proce increases are moaned about but accepted - tourist businesses put up their prices and they won't get the trade.

Will be interesting to see exactly how they plan to sell this referendum to their coalition partners and ultimately, if they get past that stage, the public!

[Cliff]

Will be interesting to see what happens at the next General Election which has to happen in no more than around 10 months time.

I think Labour are mortally wounded and the longer Gordon Brown bumbles on the deeper those wounds become. Can't see them clawing it back in such a short timescale.

Scotland will never vote Tory so the Nats are now the only viable option to Labour. Will the Scots people finally have the courage of their convictions to do their own thing or will they as usual vote like their grannies, grandads, mums and dads thus giving the lame duck Labour Party some seats at Westminister whilst at the same time leaving Scotland to be governed in the main by a Tory dominated Parliament?

Interesting times DO now lie ahead!