The events that unfolded on September the 11th in America shook the world. Terrorism became a real threat even where people felt safe. This affected the world in so many ways and severely decreased public confidence in air travel. Therefore tourism industries all round the world were affected. Scottish tourism was affected greatly as at the time American tourism accounted for a quarter of the Scottish market. The industry noticed a fall of 16.3% on predicted values of tourists from America (in Q4) and German tourist fell by 52 % on predicted values on the 4th quarter.
Fig 1: (Jaun L. Eugenio – Martin -2004)
Observer by the drop in predicted to actual tourists, even terrorism attacks out with the U.K can still have a large knock on effect to the Scottish tourism industry.
2.2 Infrastructure
The Scottish infrastructure can be divided into two main sectors; public transport and the road network. It is of Paramount importance that the Scottish work forces get to work efficiently. With major sporting events, such as the Common Wealth Games planned for upcoming years, If large amounts of tourists visit localised places such as Edinburgh, (which accounts for 1/3 of all tourist visiting Scotland). This additional strain on the countries infrastructure efficiency shall be reduced; therefore this could have a knock on effect with the Scottish economy due to employees not being able to get to work on time.
2.2 i) Public transport
With the world becoming evermore aware of CO2 emissions, large amounts of people are opting for public transport over private travel. Scottish buses and trains are seeing somewhat of an overload, with many trains and buses especially during rush hour being over crowded. This clearly violates health and safety laws. Although vast amounts of money are being spent to improve the rail and bus networks. If the tourist industry witnesses a large increase in popularity, the over crowding on trains / buses will become a bigger problem.
2.2ii) Road network
The Scottish road network is the most common method of travel. Even although the Scottish infrastructure is large and advanced, it struggles in main “hot spots” (such as the areas surrounding Glasgow and Edinburgh) when it comes to rush hour traffic. The Scottish executive has pledged to reduce congestion on roads by expanding travel routes, an example of this is the upcoming expansion to the M74. With 1/3 of tourists heading to the capital city, if this trend continues then Edinburgh road infrastructure will grind to a halt if the 2015 target for expansion of the Industry is accomplished.
2.3 Agriculture disaster
Another major factor which has affected the Scottish tourism industry in the last century is agricultural disasters. An example of this is foot and mouth. With effective segregation of land to reduce the spread of the disease, it reduces the efficiency of the tourism industry. This is due to the fact that many of Scotland’s main attractions such as Loch Lomond etc. being surrounded by farm land. Therefore movement has to be restricted to prevent the spread of the disease, clearly reducing the desirability for tourists to come to Scotland.
2.3i) Foot and mouth
The effects of foot and mouth disease were devastating to the nation’s agricultural industry, but also had serious knock on effect to the Scottish tourism industry. The Scottish tourism industry noticed the effects in the first and second quarter of 2001, with the outbreak of FMD occurring in late February. In the first quarter the industry noticed a fall of 65 % in French tourists and in the second a fall of 53 %. The French tourists usually account for around 7.9 % of the industry. This is due to the French being significantly aware of the affect of FMD due to their proximity. German tourists fell by 40.8%. German tourists account for 8.6 % of the market. This is displayed in the figure below
Fig 2 -(Jaun L. Eugenio – Martin -2004)
These figures are not a true indication of the severe decrease. Over time the industry has seen and expected an upward trend, in visitor numbers. As such the situation was more severe than these figures indicate.
These ineffective control procedures in 2001 had a serious impact on the overall outcome on the events that preceded the FMD out break . Bird flu in 2004 was handled much more effectively than FMD due to better hazard control and quicker response times. As it is likely another outbreak shall occur, the risk plans being put in place will control these situations much more effectively.
2.4 Natural disasters
In today’s ever changing climate, Scotland is noticing ever more extreme weather patterns. These include severe flooding the occurrence of hurricanes and the strongest ever recorded earthquakes in Scottish history. As we can see from the graph below;
Fig 3(The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Third Assessment Report 2006)
Observations taken from the graph show Scotland’s sea levels are expected to drastically increase. These rises would lead to rivers bursting their banks and may lead to severe flooding unless flood defences are increased.
The Scottish climate is worsening. This could pose a hazard to the Scottish tourism industry, as many of Scotland’s land marks and attractions are from previous centuries with inadequate or no planning and preparation in the case of natural disasters. This also applies to many of Scotland’s most popular hotels which are also of older building standards. The Scottish tourism industry must act swiftly and effectively to ensure that the historical land marks which attract tourists from other countries are present for the up coming years. This may take large amounts of money that the industry shall be reluctant to spend but is an absolute necessity to show the continuation of Scotland attracting a range of historical sight seers
2.5 Credit crunch
With the worlds’ economy witnessing a “slump” due to severe debts, and rising inflation, tourist industries all the world may also notice a “slow down” in the upcoming years. This is due to tourism industries being a luxury market. For tourism industry to function it needs tourists and if people can’t afford to spend large amounts of money traveling then Industries all round the world will see a reduction in gate receipts. This could have severe effect on these industries.
Although, this may be counteracted by Scottish residents not being able to afford to travel abroad. This is not as profitable for the industry as locals prefer to go away for weekend breaks whereas foreigners may stay for a week or two weeks clearly injecting more money into the industry.
Conclusion
To conclude, these are only 5 of the major risks to the Scottish Tourism Industry but there are many more. As the population continues to grow and the industry grows in stature, there will be an increase in frequency and severity of these risks. Therefore the Scottish tourism industry must act quickly and effectively to plan contingencies and hazard planning for all areas of the industry.
Word count – 1588
Reference
Jaun L. Eugenio – 2004 – quantifying the effects of tourism crises : an application to Scotland , Christel De Haan tourism and travel and tourism research institute
Wiki – 2005 - Wikipedia
Travel weekly – 2005 -http://www.travelweekly.com.au/articles/fb/0c0351fb.asp
House of commons 2002/03 – the structure and strategy for supporting tourism. Fourth report of session 02/03 HC 65
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Third Assessment Report – 2006 - http://www.scottishsealevels.net/scottish-sea-level-change.htm
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