Fury as 'unambitious' VisitScotland closes London office to save money

Published on Tuesday 9 January 2007 01:27

VISITSCOTLAND is to close its showpiece London tourist office because it is "too costly" to run.

The VisitScotland Centre, close to Trafalgar Square, will be closed from 31 March.

England is Scotland's biggest tourism market, with 7.2 million visitors from south of the Border spending more than 1 billion on trips north in 2005.

Within that, the south-east is the most lucrative part of the English market. But despite that, Scotland's tourist marketing agency, which has an annual income of over 70 million, has decided it is not worth spending 500,000 a year to keep the centre in Cockspur Street open.

A spokeswoman said soaring rents and a collapse in demand caused by rising use of the internet meant the high-profile centre was no longer cost-effective.

She said: "The decline in visitors to the centre over the past few years has been dramatic, falling from 300,000 ten years ago to under 50,000 last year."

She said the organisation had "thought long and hard" about the decision to close the centre, which has run for 25 years.

"The numbers speak for themselves. Just 600 bookings were made from the centre last year. That is not a good return when you consider it was costing 500,000 a year to run.

"It really wasn't delivering a lot for Scotland. It might have been a nice showcase, but we need to make our money work harder."

She said London remained an important tourism market for Scotland. VisitScotland would target London consumers through advertising, while keeping a London office to focus on business tourism and PR.

"VisitBritain will continue to provide an all-UK information service to visitors from their premises in Lower Regent Street," she said.

One member of staff is being relocated to the London office while relocation talks are being held with remaining staff.

The SNP last night said the decision to close the centre showed a lack of ambition.

Pete Wishart MP, the party's culture, media and sport spokesman, said he would write to Philip Riddle, VisitScotland's chief executive, urging him to rethink. He said: "Tourism is an increasingly important industry in Scotland and VisitScotland are showing a singular lack of ambition for allowing this closure to proceed. Tourism is a very competitive industry and we have to go that extra mile to secure every single tourist.

"Tourists from England are our biggest market outwith native Scots and as such we should be looking to grow our market share from England. I am therefore baffled as to why VisitScotland is pulling out of its London operation."

The Scottish Conservatives also condemned the decision. Jamie McGrigor, the party's tourism spokesman, said: "I cannot see the logic in closing an office which, situated next to Trafalgar Square, is one of the busiest tourism centres in London.

"My concern is that VisitScotland is becoming too reliant on the website, visitscotland.com, to promote the country and I have little doubt this may well worry many tourist operators who have experienced the performance of visitscotland.com at first hand."

But Graham Birse, deputy chief executive of Edinburgh and Lothians Chamber of Commerce, said the closure was "not necessarily bad news" - provided the money saved was channelled into advertising targeting the affluent London market.

"We need to see more mobile and text campaigns, more adverts on the underground and more features about Scotland in London-based newspapers.

"We also need urgent talks to ensure that VisitBritain deliver the highest service for Scotland. In the past they have tended to leave it to the Scots to run their own operation."