Notes of Cairngorms Tourism Emergency Response Group Meeting

Cairngorms Tour­ism Emer­gency Response Group 6^th April 2020 Note of meeting:

1. Sta­bil­ize

   • Key cur­rent issues from CBP, VA, MoraySpey­side. There was a gen­er­al feel­ing from DMOs that the situ­ation was begin­ning to settle slightly, though com­mu­nic­a­tion with busi­nesses to identi­fy gaps in sup­port remains key. MS are apply­ing for fund­ing from the BIDS resi­li­ence fund. Some gaps in sup­port are being rec­ti­fied. In par­tic­u­lar, staff employed at 28/2/20 can be re-hired by their employ­er at that time and then fur­loughed. Sev­er­al meet­ings were com­ing up with Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ters to review pro­gress and raise issues of concern.
   • New guid­ance on hol­i­day let­tings. The new self-cater­ing sup­port pack­age will go live from High­land Coun­cil around lunch­time with oth­er loc­al author­it­ies work­ing to sim­il­ar times­cales. Dis­cus­sion with ASSC about suf­fi­cient but prag­mat­ic level of sup­port­ing evidence.
   • Busi­ness Sup­port. HC star­ted mak­ing pay­ments last Wed­nes­day, and expect to be giv­ing out £5m a day next week, for an expec­ted total of around £94m in total. AC have also star­ted pro­cessing pay­ment and have had around 20000 applic­a­tions (not all tourism)
   • Vis­itScot­land over­view. Busi­ness sur­vey had 1800 responses and was pub­lished last week. Also pro­duced was a Mar­ket Insight Sum­mary, and ​‘Heart Grows Fonder’ video to keep Scot­land in the mind of poten­tial visitors.
   • Travel to the coun­tryside /​outdoor access. There was a feel­ing that vis­it­or num­bers to the coun­tryside had markedly decreased, and most res­id­ents were fol­low­ing guidelines around out­door exercise.
   • Com­munity-led response activ­it­ies. Com­munity response teams are work­ing well through­out the Park’s com­munit­ies. AC have set up a Com­munity Resi­li­ence Fund to sup­port com­munity groups, dis­trib­uted through Area Man­agers. Applic­a­tions have been made for Com­munity Resi­li­ence Fund.

2. Com­mu­nic­ate, Inspire and Plan

   • Com­mu­nic­ate and Inspire vis­it­ors. DMOs con­tin­ue to engage with fol­low­ers, try­ing to strike the right tone. CBP are exper­i­ment­ing with more inter­act­ive con­tent such as quizzes using Make it Yours mater­i­als. VA are fol­low­ing up planned Expo appoint­ments by oth­er means, as buy­ers are still plan­ning ahead. VS are also look­ing to inter­act with Expo buy­ers and are invest­ig­at­ing tech solu­tions for des­tin­a­tion promotion.
   • Plan. MF and MT to pull togeth­er a paper out­lining a busi­ness-led approach to plan­ning over the com­ing months. This will be avail­able for dis­cus­sion at the next meet­ing. Vis­it­or Sur­vey ana­lys­is is ongo­ing at the moment and fuller res­ults will be avail­able next month.
   • HIE / Cain­gorm Moun­tain. Rhona Fraser sent apo­lo­gies but gave an update on CMSL. Plan­ning per­mis­sion for funicu­lar repair has been sub­mit­ted and is likely to go to an online plan­ning meet­ing in May. The mas­ter­plan­ning con­sulta­tion is ongo­ing. Sea­son­al winter staff that had been giv­en notice have been rehired and fur­loughed for the rest of their con­tract (MT poin­ted out that it would be pos­sible to extend this bey­ond the end of their exist­ing con­tracts as

new employ­ment would still be dif­fi­cult to find at the end of the month).

1. Pre­pare for Return

   • VS con­tin­ue to scen­ario plan for eas­ing of restric­tions. In China, rur­al des­tin­a­tions seem to recov­er much more quickly than urb­an. VA are plan­ning to amend social media con­tent for a more loc­al audi­ence as restric­tions reduce.
   • DMOs will con­tin­ue dia­logue with busi­nesses about their pre­pared­ness and abil­ity to re-open. CBP are plan­ning to con­tin­ue online busi­ness meet­ings, some gen­er­al, some sec­tor spe­cif­ic. They are also plan­ning a busi­ness sur­vey to estab­lish read­i­ness to re-open.

2. Date of next meeting

   • Next Monday is East­er Monday so no meet­ing is planned unless there is any major change to the situ­ation (that decision would be made and noti­fied by Fri­day). The next meet­ing oth­er­wise will be Monday 20^th, which will be a short 30 minute meet­ing for key updates. The fol­low­ing day, Tues­day 21^st, there will be the sched­uled meet­ing of the full Cairngorms Tour­ism Partnership.