Tourism industry responds to First Minister announcement on opening up of air bridges

Marc Crothall, Chief Executive of the Scottish Tourism Alliance said:

“We welcome clarity around the opening up of routes into Scotland and support the Scottish Government’s risk-based approach in balancing the economic challenges with the health risks, however the news that Spain is not on the list of air bridges announced today will come as a blow to the aviation sector and our tourism industry with Spain representing a huge proportion of restart plans.  The Spanish market accounted for 205,000 visits to Scotland in 2018 and with many Scots now expected to shelve plans to travel to the destination, it may be likely that airlines will abandon plans to capture the summer market which would have been required to avoid mass redundancies across the sector.  We are however hopeful that these both Spain and Serbia may be included at the next review point on 20 July.”