Press statement – Tourism industry welcomes announcement of Hotel Recovery Programme

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

“Today’s announcement will be extremely welcome news, particularly for the hotels eligible for this support, many of which will have been unable to access grant funding to date.

The programme will go some way in helping to secure many of the hotel jobs in the short to medium term which would most likely otherwise be lost.

Hotel occupancy levels across the country continue to track significantly below the breakeven levels needed to meet the day to day overheads of running a business and the forward outlook is no different.

The £14m pot of cash whilst sizeable is however limited and there won’t be enough to support all the hotels that are in need of immediate financial support to help them survive, recover and maintain their previous staffing levels.

It remains the case that without this support and other forms of longer-term support and relief in the future, many of Scotland’s hotels will remain at significant risk of being forced into permanent closure which will result in many more thousands of jobs still being lost.

We remain grateful for the acknowledgement that Scottish tourism is an industry in crisis and in need of urgent and longer-term support and the Scottish Tourism Alliance will continue to make the case for longer term funding with the Scottish and UK governments.