Pre-Budget Fiscal Statement: Equality and Fairer Scotland Impact Assessment

Deputy First Minister, Economy and Gaelic

Agreed saving: Visit Scotland – Branding and Campaign Spend

Description: Saving achieved through reducing Visit Scotland’s marketing activity during 2024-25

£million (reduction): 0.83

Equality and fairness – evidence and impact analysis:

The saving identified will impact VisitScotland’s activity to promote direct transport routes to Scotland and drive bookings from key markets, including UK, France, Germany and the US. It is looking across its activity to ensure that it maximises the impact of its remaining budget.

Visitor numbers depend on a number of variables, such as the global economic climate and the weather, and are therefore difficult to predict. In any given year, an increase or reduction in forward bookings will impact tourism and events businesses across Scotland. The reduction in funding will reduce VisitScotland’s ability to work with partners to extend the reach and impact of their market development activity designed to drive regional and seasonal spread and spend of visitors.

Whilst VisitScotland’s market development activities will be scaled back from those planned, VisitScotland will continue to use its expertise to maximise the impact of its own and partner channels, including relationships with travel intermediaries, to attract domestic and international visitors to Scotland.

The tourism sector supports 229,000 jobs which are inclusive in nature: they are readily available throughout Scotland and can be accessed by people from a range of socio-economic backgrounds and age groups and those with a wide range of abilities. Often, jobs in tourism and the related field of hospitality provide an opportunity to enter work for the first time and can offer flexibility in terms of shift patterns etc.

The impact on employment due to the suspension of this core Visit Scotland activity is difficult to isolate and quantify in the short term because of the variables impacting on visitor numbers (see above) but visitor numbers do provide an immediate stimulus to the Scottish economy and any reduction (or slowing of growth) will have a potential impact on employment in the sector.

Agreed saving: European Structural Funds Disallowance

Description: This relates to a provision made to manage anticipated losses in the European Social Fund, which emerged after the programme was placed into suspension by the EC. The saving reflects a revised forecast on the scale of these losses.

£million (reduction): 0.8

Equality and fairness – evidence and impact analysis:

None