Friday 13th March. 9.25 am.
A business rates moratorium of ideally a minimum of six months for ALL sizes of tourism business, a VAT and PAYE payment delay to ease cashflow, an immediate cut in tourism related VAT and funding or low interest loans made available to support tourism businesses to stay afloat, are just some of the measures put to the Scottish Government in a letter to Finance Secretary, Kate Forbes MSP by the Scottish Tourism Alliance in order to keep businesses afloat during this Covid-19 pandemic. UKHospitality has also written to the Government asking for the same measures.
They are also urging businesses to fill in a survey VisitScotland Covid-19 Tourism Industry Survey.
A Scottish Tourism Emergency Response Group (STERG) is also being established to respond in a coordinated manner to the threats and problems which will result from the ongoing emergency so they can redefine and redirect its resources towards crisis management tasks internally and externally. The STA is part of that group which will meet on Tuesday.
Marc Crothall, Chief Executive of the STA, has assured members, “Our role is to ensure that as this situation continues to unfold, your business interests are represented and protected as far as possible. We will be working extremely hard to do that over the coming weeks with the information we provide to you throughout the day, every day and through our continued conversations with governments and policy makers.
“Please be assured that we are doing all we can to mitigate the significant threats that Coronavirus poses to Scotland’s tourism industry.”