Scottish tourism director labels keeping England in promotional material 'nonsensical'

It follows reports of fears of ‘anti-English sentiment’ in Scotland raised by tourism chiefs

It would have been 'nonsensical' to have spent money on promotional material to English people, a tourism chief has said.

A decision to continue marketing Scotland to English visitors would have been “nonsensical” and about as sensible as promoting the country to the USA, one of the country’s tourism chiefs has said.

Riddell Graham, a director at VisitScotland, was responding to questions raised by Oliver Mundell MSP at the Culture, Tourism, Europe and External Affairs Committee about reports that references to the north of England were removed from promotional material.

The Scottish Daily Mail reported on Tuesday that VisitScotland officials had warned of ‘anti-English sentiment’ affecting the tourism industry after the references had been removed from the launch of its £3m campaign.

Mr Mundell, the Scottish Conservatives’ tourism spokesman asked Mr Graham and Marc Crothall, the chief executive of the Scottish Tourism Alliance, whether they were “embarrassed” by the “growing perception that Scotland is not seen as being a welcoming place to millions of customers who are often the only lifeline for much of the tourist industry.”

Mr Graham said that their decision to “pause” the campaign for the rest of the UK was made due to medical guidance and said it would have been “nonsensical” to have spent money promoting to a place with “particular issues”.

He said: “Just to be clear on that, we were given guidance by Scottish Government to launch a major campaign UK wide, not just England, beyond Scotland would not be the right thing to do at the time based on the medical evidence that we were getting.

"They were obviously much closer to the medical advice than we were and lo and behold a few days after that advice was given then there was a significant outbreak in the north of England that we were unaware of and I suspect Scottish Government officials on the health side were.

"That made it absolutely sensible. It seems to me no point whatsoever in promoting tourism to parts of the country that have particular issues.

"The classic example would be why would we promote Scotland in North America when they have got huge problems there with the virus.

"I think specific references to England I don’t think was the case, it was simply ‘can you put it on pause the activity that you were planning until such a time that it is safe to do so’.

"I think that makes absolute sense, there is no point in wasting money promoting to destinations where in fact it would be nonsensical to do so.”

Mr Graham also hit back at Mr Mundell’s suggestion that ‘anti-English sentiment’ had hurt Scottish tourism and attacked the media for not representing the majority.

He said: “The welcome is as strong as ever. Inevitably you will always get a small minority that spoil it for the rest and I don’t think that the media coverage was representative in any way of the welcome that Scots are providing visitors from all over the world and particularly those from England.

"I’m always embarrassed at things like that because I think it does nothing to support the well-being of the industry but I think it was a minority view and one that I think is not representative of the rest of the country.”

Oliver Mundell, the Scottish Conservative’s tourism spokesman, said there was “no doubt in my mind” that the Scottish Government had “badly failed” the tourism industry.

He said: “I do respect what you are saying however there is no doubt in my mind that the failure of the First Minister and other senior figures in the Scottish Government to shut down the perception that Scotland is closed to English visitors has badly failed the tourism industry and has once again put politics ahead of people’s lives.”

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