STA Activity – November
After a busy period in October around the STA Annual Autumn Conference and launch of the draft future tourism strategy, we had a relatively quiet few weeks with mid-term and Parliament in recess, however November is set to be one of our busiest months this year with a full STA diary of speaking engagements and activity around future policy.
We recently attended the Migration Advisory Committee roundtable consultation to offer evidence around the best mechanism of calculating the future salary thresholds for the UK’s immigration system. The STA, along with our counterparts at the UK Hospitality, the Scottish Licensed Trade Association and the Scottish Beer & Pub Association will meet with Finance Minister, Derek Mackay on 14th November to discuss business rates, additional regulations facing the sector and their timelines for implementation and the shaping of future short-term let regulation and legislation.
We are also putting the final touches to our ‘Engaging Your MSP in Tourism’ Toolkit which we will be sending to you before the month end, so you can look forward to that hitting your in box in due course.
Marc Crothall is out and about (almost every day this month!) speaking at events all over Scotland, as is Karen Christie, Tourism Strategy Project Manager taking the draft future tourism strategy out on the road to introduce to the tourism industry and other stakeholders the length and breadth of the country including Moray, Lochaber, Fife, Orkney, the Central Belt and beyond! There’s a lot of work happening in terms of engaging Scotland’s future generation in the strategy; we were delighted to see so many students at the STA Annual Autumn Conference and also the recent National Chef’s Conference in Edinburgh and introduce them to what that vision of 21st century tourism looks like. We have also presented the future strategy to students as SRUC, the University of Stirling and look forward to meeting postgrad students at Glasgow Caledonian University later in the month.
Marc recently spoke at the Association of Self Caterers Conference, Edinburgh Festival Forum, the Cairngorms Business Partnership Conference. Karen and Marc will also be speaking at a number of key industry events and conferences such as the Association of Scottish Visitor Attractions Conference, Brodie’s Food and Drink Conference, the British Holiday & Home Parks Association Conference and many others before the year end.
What’s coming up?
The STA has partnered Cruise Scotland to host Scotland’s Cruise Conference on 19th November in Aberdeen and we’ll also be in Aberdeen on 18th November to introduce Aberdeenshire tourism businesses and organisations to the work of the STA and the future draft tourism strategy at an event kindly hosted by Robert Gordon University.
At the end of the month we will host our annual Patrons’ and Business Leaders Dinner at the Edinburgh Royal Botanic Garden. We are delighted to welcome the Cabinet Secretary for Culture, Tourism and External Affairs, Fiona Hyslop to offer our pre-dinner industry address and look forward to hearing the thoughts of our keynote speaker, Malcolm Cannon, the newly appointed National Director for the Institute of Directors Scotland and some anecdotes from our after dinner speaker, Robin Clements, UK Sales Manager at Arnold Clark Car & Van Rental.
Last but very much not least, the team will be busy working on finalising the programme for the STA Signature Sessions 2020 and our exclusive Dinner with a Difference event which we are elevating (quite literally) for next year. We’ll be hosting this sell out social event in the Radisson Red Sky Bar beside the Clyde – where better to raise a glass to the Year of Coasts and Waters 2020!
An exceptionally busy few weeks ahead for everyone in Team STA!
