STA Board Meeting with First Minister
STA Board Meeting with First Minister
The STA Board met with the First Minister last week to discuss several key issues for Scotland’s tourism industry and gain more clarity around areas which are impacting the sector.
On the road map for reopening…
The First Minister said:
“The further into the future we go, the less certain I can be about the answers I give to you.
Some of the answers are dependent on the trade-offs we are willing to make. I want to get things up and running on as normal a basis as possible.
We’re treading a fine line – things are going pretty well. All of the data about the impact on the vaccines is positive. The big danger we face is that we open up before the efficacy of the vaccine kicks in.”
On borders and travel…
The First Minister said:
“I hope we will be able to open up the England/Scotland border round about the 26th April, if not a little bit after. We are going to have to be more cautious for longer about international travel.
We will try to have a four nations approach as much as possible, however international travel restrictions are likely to be in place for longer; we need to know if the vaccines give us protection over new strains.
My hope is that if we domestically do all the things we’re doing and are prepared to recognise trade-offs around international travel, we’ll get to a much normal position at home.
The trade-off may be keeping our international borders secure against importation.
I think we’ve got a real chance of getting somewhere near close to normal domestically but the trade-off for the majority of this year may be not getting back to normal with international travel.
I see possibilities of ways of opening up international travel but we don’t yet know absolutely the effect of the vaccine in reducing the effects of the virus. We think it is having a suppressive effect on transmission but we need more detail on that to be certain.
Vaccine companies are still doing a lot of research around efficacy – all of it is positive but it’s not definitive and this is a moving picture.
I hope we can do more on international travel before the end of the year.”
On economic support
The First Minister said:
“We’ve listened to representations – and the commitment to the grant support and position on Non-Domestic Rates relief has been in response to key business asks.
I think it would be disastrous and counter-productive for businesses to have to start paying back loans too soon and we will continue to make representations to the UK Government.”
On hospitality…
The First Minister said:
“What we decided to do when we set out the road map, with reopening from 26 April, we said that we hope outdoor hospitality will be pretty much back to normal. We decided to try to go for some indoor opening at that point, whilst recognising that this needs to be restricted initially with further movement as we progress through the levels.
I apologise that I can’t give absolute clarity on certain points on how the position is likely to look come Autumn, as much will depend on the outcomes of the vaccination programme and our ability to prevent the spread of new strains of the virus”
On the events sector…
The First Minister said:
“One of the reasons for not putting fixed numbers on events is that we’re considering if there are better ways that we can open up, particularly for the events sector.”
General comments from the First Minister
“This is not about you having to convince me about the importance of your individual sectors – I know that, we want to get things open in as sensible and safe a way as possible.
We have to do that at a pace where in a few months, we’re not having to close more things down again.
We opened up international travel too quickly last year. If we hadn’t we might have managed to contain the virus for a bit longer.
Nothing is set in stone – we are trying to learn as we go, have an evidence informed approach based on the data and to make these decisions as quickly as possible and have as much dialogue along the way as we can.”
