Chief Executive’s Report 2021
Introduction
We all know that coronavirus has posed an unprecedented challenge to the entire tourism sector, including self-catering. From the outset of the pandemic and the introduction of lockdown, the self-catering sector as a whole has demonstrated considerable leadership and perseverance, as we responsibly closed our businesses, at great personal and financial cost.
Throughout the pandemic and as we navigate out of it into the ‘New Extraordinary’, the ASSC has fought the corner of its members, kept them informed of unfolding developments over multiple platforms, and engaged with leading tourism stakeholders, MSPs and the Scottish Government to ensure the best outcome possible for our sector. The ASSC continues to be at the top table with key leadership groups and the Scottish Government to address the crisis as it unfolds.
We have liaised with Regional DMOs and tourism industry bodies to ensure self-catering is aligned with other businesses. We have held conversations around progress, restart and recovery activity and we have also had meetings with local authority representatives, COSLA and regional bodies such as South of Scotland Enterprise to understand how we can work with them to support long-term economic recovery.
We have worked closely with the Scottish Government Tourism Directorate, engaged with Cabinet Secretaries and their officials, as well as cross party MSPs throughout the pandemic.
At the same time, we have faced the biggest challenge the sector has ever faced: short-term let licensing legislation alongside planning control area legislation.
Self-catering is hugely important to Scottish tourism, in terms of jobs, revenue, and the world-class experiences we’re able to offer our guests.
To be such an essential part of Scotland’s tourism mix is even more remarkable for our sector, which generates £867 million every year, when we consider that most self-caterers operate small to medium-sized businesses.
Scotland’s professional self-caterers are diligent, conscientious, and considerate business people who are unjustly accused of all sorts of things for which there is not a single scrap of credible evidence.
We do not, for example, “hollow out communities”, as some have claimed, but rather are part of local communities across Scotland and have been for many, many years.
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