The SPAA has described the outbound travel industry as the “Cinderella sector” after once again being overlooked for business support by the Scottish government.
Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon announced an additional £55 million fund for Covid-hit businesses on Wednesday, but singled out taxi drivers and services such as beauticians and hairdressers for the bulk of the funding, with £5 million allocated to sport and £3 million to tourism businesses.
SPAA president Joanne Dooey blasted the lack of recognition and pointed out that “without outbound travel there is no inbound tourism”.
She said: “Scottish travel professionals are wholly at a loss to understand why we seem to be the Cinderella sector of business support.
“The travel industry in Scotland seems, once again, to have been wholly ignored by the Scottish government’s business support package.
“In today’s announcement, the first minister announced millions of pounds of business support for everything from tourism to beauticians. Yet not a word about support for the travel sector.”
She added: “Travel agents have faced highly restricted trading – with many reporting trading at less than 10% of pre-pandemic rates in our members’ survey – with minimal support.
“Travel agencies have been forced to remain open to handle refunds, rebookings and repatriations. Most have had little revenue since March 2020.We urgently need sector-specific support.”
Dooey went on to point out that outbound travel was worth £1.5 billion to the Scottish economy, and warned it could take decades to restore air networks lost due to lack of support.
She said: “What seems to be consistently overlooked is that without outbound travel there is no inbound tourism. What is the point of supporting Scottish tourism businesses with £3million of business support if the travel industry, which brings them all here, has been decimated through lack of support?
“Routes take decades to develop and secure for Scotland. If we are unable to retain these flights, then Scotland will also lose its valuable inbound visitors the benefits they bring to the economy. And it could take decades for us to restore this.”