Hansard

Excellent. I welcome him and thank him and all his colleagues on the tourism leadership group for their work on the strategy. The strategy was not devised in a few weeks; it is the result of thousands of hours of work and meetings throughout the country, and is a major step forward.

As the STA moves into the action planning and delivery phase, our agencies will collaborate closely to ensure that we are all working together. As a starting point, VisitScotland and the enterprise agencies have updated the tourism intelligence Scotland “Knowing our Markets” guide to provide businesses with more information on the markets that are highlighted in the strategy. I will work with ministers on areas such as food and drink; route development, which the Conservatives raised, fairly, in their amendment; broadband infrastructure, which is important; and access to finance for investment. All those areas are highlighted in the strategy. I will also look to the enterprise agencies to do what they can to encourage and support investment in tourism, especially in the accommodation sector, although I acknowledge that that is difficult because of competition law.

The development of international trade is a top priority for the Scottish Government. Scottish Development International will continue to develop its overseas activity programme with VisitScotland and will use its extensive expertise and networks on the ground, especially in the international markets that are identified in the strategy. I will look to VisitScotland to further develop genuine partnerships with the tourism industry. That will mean building our campaigns and doing our work not only in the public sector, but with the industry fully engaged and involved in the formulation stage, as it should be if we are to achieve our potential.

Some of the levers that would support the industry are in the hands of the UK Government. The Scottish Government continues to make a strong case for the devolution of air passenger duty. Improving our air connectivity is vital for business and in-bound tourism. We wish to use the devolution of APD to better align aviation taxation to Scottish circumstances and incentivise links to Scotland.

We will continue to voice our concerns about the high VAT rate that the UK Government is maintaining on hospitality and tourism. The uncompetitive VAT rate compared with the rates of our European competitors places Scotland at a significant disadvantage. Some 24 of the 27 European Union countries have made reductions in their VAT rates for the hospitality and tourism sectors. With the existing burden of VAT and other taxes, the Scottish Government would not support the introduction of new taxes on tourism. I have had discussions with the leadership of the City of Edinburgh Council, which is, we understand, looking at a range of other options to increase revenues from tourism. We support the council in that, but the Scottish Government has been clear from the start that we have no plans to add any new tax burdens on the tourism sector.

The UK Government recently sought to impose 20 per cent VAT on the sale of new static caravans, which were previously zero rated. After an excellent meeting with industry stakeholders in a committee room in the Parliament—people involved in the caravan sector throughout the country were involved in that meeting—I wrote to the UK chancellor to set out all the concerns that we heard at it. I am very pleased to say that, following the representations, the UK Government has stepped back from the change.

I express to my Conservative colleagues who are in the chamber my genuine appreciation that concerns were listened to and acted on, which are not easy things to do—I do not wish to make light of or play politics with the issue. The rate is now 5 per cent, which is a welcome reduction from 20 per cent.

I commend the industry for sustaining growth in difficult times and for its proactive and valuable work in defining a new strategy. We will work harder than ever to secure even greater success for our tourism sector. I urge destinations to make the most of the conference bid fund and I call on the UK Government to give further consideration to the competitiveness of our industry.

It is the people who work in the industry who make it succeed. I commend people in tourism all over Scotland for their success and I wish them success in future.

I move,

That the Parliament recognises the achievements of tourism businesses across Scotland in achieving a 14% increase in overnight visitor revenues in 2011; welcomes the new tourism strategy prepared by the industry, for the industry, which focuses on the importance of industry leadership, the quality that visitors encounter across their whole journey in Scotland and using Scotland’s assets to create the experiences that visitors are looking for; commends the efforts of the industry-led Tourism Leadership Group in developing the strategy and recognises the important role to be played by relevant agencies and non-departmental public bodies in supporting the industry’s strategy; renews calls on the UK Government to play its part by devolving air passenger duty and to consider a reduction of VAT rates for the sector; recognises the enormous opportunity for tourism in Scotland presented by The Winning Years and the Disney/Pixar film, Brave, in particular; congratulates Glasgow on its success in winning several additional conferences with the support of the Conference Bid Fund announced in March 2012, and encourages other destinations in Scotland to use the fund to win further business for Scotland.

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