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Highland tourism well placed for a post-Covid world, HITA chairman says


By Calum MacLeod

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The open spaces of the Highlands will become an even more attractive draw for the post-Covid traveller.
The open spaces of the Highlands will become an even more attractive draw for the post-Covid traveller.

This may not be a year for celebration, but the time will come when the innovation and resilience of the Highlands and Islands tourism industry will be recognised.

That was the message from Highlands and Islands Tourism Awards (HITA) chairman Laurence Young as for the first time in many years November will pass without the annual awards ceremony taking place in Inverness.

Mr Young said the board had taken the decision in consultation with other groups, among them the national Scottish Thistle Awards. Most HITA category winners normally go on to compete at the Scottish Thistle Awards the following March.

Mr Young (right) commented: “This is just another example of the way our industry, like so many, has been impacted by Covid. Studies suggest that impact will continue for some time, and that impact will fall more on people who work in hospitality than on others.

“No-one was minded to have a celebration. That was the view not just across the Highlands, but across the whole industry. For a lot of people in the industry, their jobs were threatened, their remuneration was decreased and for business owners, the very existence of their business was in question. In these circumstances, it just wouldn’t be appropriate to be seen to be celebrating in any way.”

However, Mr Young has seen some positives in the ways that Highlands and Islands tourism businesses had responded to the crisis and found new ways of continuing to trade or had used their own resources to support their communities during lockdown.

“There is a whole raft of examples across the Highlands of how businesses have adapted to their circumstances and done things differently and sought to find demand and revenues by looking for new opportunities,” he said.

Other businesses had used the lockdown to pause and think more strategically about their future, making a positive of the unwelcome interruption, he added, but this did not alter the fact that for many situation had been dreadful.

“Hospitality has a lot of small businesses, many of them family businesses with local employees, so there is a real feeling of concern not just for their own businesses, but for the livelihoods around them,” he said.

Mr Young also acknowledged that the crisis had changed the nature of tourism with a major fall in international travel.

While this meant the Highlands would have to work hard to build back its international tourism trade, changing tourism patterns provided an opportunity for Scots to discover the attractions of the Highlands and Islands for themselves.

HITA chairman Laurence Young at last year's awards.
HITA chairman Laurence Young at last year's awards.

“Hopefully that will mean they develop an appetite for their country because only a small percentage of people from Edinburgh and Glasgow have been to the Highlands,” he pointed out.

“The attributes of the Highlands are absolutely those that will be even more warmly received in the future. The ability to get away and into the wide outdoors is an attribute that will be sought globally. In terms of our assets we are well positioned for a post-Covid world.

“Whilst there is a pause because celebration isn’t appropriate at this time, I think we can be assured that in the future we will be able to celebrate success and achievement once again because some jaw-dropping things will continue to happen among tourism businesses.”


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