Note of meeting - Monday 28 September 2020

Cairngorms Tour­ism Emer­gency Response Group Monday 28^th Septem­ber 2020, 11am

1) Wel­come & apo­lo­gies Present: Janet Hunter (Chair), Heath­er Trench, Mur­ray Fer­guson, Grant Moir, Pete Crane, Chris Taylor, Mark Tate, Chris Foy, Deirdre Fal­con­er, Alistair Reid, Geva Black­ett, Fran­coise van Buuren, Rhona Fraser, Colin Simpson.

Apo­lo­gies: None

2) Implic­a­tions of new restric­tions and guidance

Last week’s announce­ment of new house­hold and hos­pit­al­ity restric­tions has had sev­er­al ser­i­ous impacts on the tour­ism and hos­pit­al­ity sector:

• After some ini­tial con­fu­sion and mixed mes­saging, it has been con­firmed that self- cater­ing prop­er­ties must now adhere to the 6 adults / one house­hold social dis­tan­cing advice. This has had a sig­ni­fic­ant impact on exist­ing and new book­ings par­tic­u­larly, but not exclus­ively, to lar­ger self-cater­ing properties.
• The increase in restric­tions after a peri­od of eas­ing, has dampened con­sumer con­fid­ence more widely with oth­er accom­mod­a­tion sec­tors also report­ing can­cel­la­tions and redu­cing num­bers of new bookings.
• The new 10pm curfew will ser­i­ously affect prof­it­ab­il­ity for some hos­pit­al­ity busi­nesses, remov­ing the oppor­tun­ity for 2 sit­tings per evening.
• A lack of con­fid­ence in future book­ings actu­ally going ahead is lead­ing to cash-flow issues for some businesses.

There are sev­er­al sur­veys under­way or planned to assess the likely impacts:

• Vis­it­Ab­er­deen­shire ran a busi­ness sur­vey over the week­end which showed that 67% of par­ti­cip­at­ing busi­nesses had seen can­cel­la­tions for book­ings over the next 3 weeks.
• CBP will be run­ning their usu­al monthly occu­pancy sur­vey from Thursday and will ask about can­cel­la­tions as well as bookings.
• ASSC are also run­ning a nation­al sur­vey of self-cater­ing providers.

There was a dis­cus­sion about poten­tial meas­ures to mit­ig­ate the impacts of the new restric­tions and raise con­sumer confidence:

• Hotel accom­mod­a­tion rules are unaf­fected by the changes and could poten­tially absorb some of the busi­ness from lar­ger self-cater­ing prop­er­ties. Wheth­er lar­ger self-cater­ing busi­nesses are happy to refer some guests to loc­al hotels would be a com­mer­cial decision and would have to be care­fully cos­ted for both busi­ness and consumer.
• Day vis­it­ors to coun­tryside sites remain about 30% up on the pre­vi­ous year, but may not be spend­ing money. There remains an oppor­tun­ity to encour­age them into towns and vil­lages to vis­it loc­al busi­nesses as part of their trip.

• There was a feel­ing that many can­cel­la­tions were a knee-jerk reac­tion to the fear of fur­ther restric­tions, for example on travel. Con­sumer demand was pre­vi­ously high, with a lack of avail­able prop­er­ties for the Octo­ber hol­i­days in par­tic­u­lar. There will be an audi­ence who pre­vi­ously failed to find suit­able accom­mod­a­tion, and may

• respond well to a ​‘look again’ mes­sage, and poten­tially a Face­book group or webpage show­ing all late-avail­ab­il­ity accommodation.

• With a strong mes­sage from the Scot­tish gov­ern­ment to avoid over­seas hol­i­days, there may also be a mar­ket for replace­ment domest­ic breaks.
• Many of these oppor­tun­it­ies will need to be led by the busi­ness com­munity, and CBP have re-con­vened the #Cairngorm­s­To­geth­er col­lab­or­at­ive group for anoth­er meet­ing next week.
• The pri­or­ity for DMOs and pub­lic sec­tor part­ners is to stim­u­late demand by put­ting out clear and con­sist­ent pos­it­ive mes­sages about the many remain­ing options for accom­mod­a­tion, attrac­tions and activ­it­ies still avail­able, and ​‘Good to Go’ with Cov­id pre­cau­tions in place.

Actions agreed:

• CBP and CNPA to pull togeth­er joint press state­ment about the Cairngorms being open for busi­ness and oppor­tun­it­ies for vis­it­ing, par­tic­u­larly for the Octo­ber hol­i­day peri­od, to be backed up with appro­pri­ate social media activity.
• All involved in meet­ings with Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters to lobby for more pos­it­ive mes­saging about the vis­it­or eco­nomy to provide reas­sur­ance to consumers.
• All to con­tin­ue to use the #Cairngorm­s­To­geth­er mes­saging – Know the Guidelines, Plan Ahead, Be Flex­ible, Be Kind.

3) Any oth­er rel­ev­ant updates

A nation­al Vis­it­or Man­age­ment Strategy steer­ing group has been set up, led by Mal­colm Rough­head of Vis­itScot­land and includ­ing Nation­al Park Author­it­ies, Forestry & Land Scot­land, NatureScot and Police Scot­land. There will also be a range of sub­groups look­ing at dif­fer­ent issues. Plan­ning is under­way for vis­it­or man­age­ment next Spring / Summer.

CNPA are sub­mit­ting 2 applic­a­tions to the 3^rd round of the Rur­al Tour­ism Infra­struc­ture Fund. The planned applic­a­tion with Din­net Estates will not be going for­ward. High­land Coun­cil are lob­by­ing for increased invest­ment in the fund.

4) AOB None

5) Date of next meeting

The next meet­ing is likely to be in 2 weeks’ time on the 12^th Octo­ber. TBC.