New Tourism Strategy to Boost Edinburgh's Economy

Fergus Ewing MSP, the Minister for Enterprise , Energy and Tourism, announced details of the Edinburgh 2020 Edinburgh Tourism Strategy and outlined the key recommendations for ensuring the continued success and growth of Edinburgh’s tourism sector.

Mr Ewing was speaking at the seventh annual Edinburgh Tourism Action Group (ETAG) conference.

The ambitious strategy, which is a result of extensive research and over 150 individual consultations with tourism-related businesses, sets out a clear vision and  targets for the industry to achieve by 2020.

Chair of ETAG, Robin Worsnop said: "The past 20 years have seen a remarkable transformation in the scale and nature of Edinburgh’s tourism industry and its impact on the economic, social and cultural life of the city.

"Once a highly seasonal destination, dominated by leisure tourism, Edinburgh now has a rich, diverse year-round industry, with a very strong high-yield conference and meetings sector.

"Tourism-related employment has gone up from 12,000 in 1989 to 32,000 now.

"Now, at the beginning of 2012, the UK and Europe economies are seeing a further downturn, the length, depth and impact of which is uncertain. In Scotland and the UK in general, continuing economic uncertainty and major cuts in public expenditure will have significant implications for consumer demand and on the scale and nature of investment in destination development, management and marketing activity.

"Edinburgh 2020 is about maintaining the momentum of growth for the next 10 years and beyond. It will act as a catalyst for partnership and collaboration across the industry and build the case for, and prioritise investment in, the tourism product.

"The strategy will support the creation of 6500 new full-time jobs in Edinburgh by 2020."

The Edinburgh Tourism Strategy sets out three clear objectives to achieve by 2020, supported by specific and measurable growth targets:

1. The target is to increase the number of visits by one-third: from 3.27m visits to 4.39m visits, generating an additional 4.15 million visitor nights, an increase of 3% per annum.
2. Increase the value of every visitor's spend by 10%: the target is to increase spend from £310.40 to £341.44 per visitor trip. Combined with increasing the number of visitors by one-third, this will generate an additional £485 million per annum by 2020, taking the total visitor spend from £1.015bn to £1.5bn in today’s prices.
3. Reduce seasonality across the sector: the target is to achieve 50% of the additional growth during the months of October to March and reduce the current 40:60 split in visits to 43:57 between October to March and April to September.

Fergus Ewing said: "The Scottish Government is committed to supporting the growth of the tourism industry and I am delighted to be launching the Edinburgh 2020 strategy which will be central to achieving that growth.

"The strategy recognises that tourism brings many benefits, not just for Edinburgh but for the whole country. It is ambitious and has clear objectives which will stand the industry in good stead for the future.

"The launch is very timely as we start 2012 and go into the next few years of great opportunities for tourism. These include some of the biggest events in the world such as Olympics, the British Open which will be coming to Muirfield in 2013, the Commonwealth Games, The Ryder Cup, culminating with the Year of Homecoming in 2014."

To implement the strategy, an Edinburgh Tourism Strategy Implementation Group (SIG) will be formed, made up of key organisations from public and private sectors.

Action Groups will be established to progress defined projects and areas of action. The SIG will monitor their progress, through a reporting and performance management process.

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