| 11th Hour Finance Bill Reprieve Benefits Thousands of Tourism Businesses in Scotland |
Despite a recent tight vote of 67 to the Government, opposition parties managed to force the Government to remove the Repeal of the Furnished Holiday Let (FHL) Rules from the Finance Bill as part of the horse-trading during the wash-up at Westminster last night.
The current position is:
If Labour is re-elected, they may well seek to put the repeal into the next Finance Bill (which, if there is an emergency budget, could be quite soon). The Conservative position is to "consult on a new regime to allow furnished holiday lettings to continue to be treated as a trade, on a fiscally neutral basis".
If the repeal sticks, this will help grow tourism, support communities and protect jobs in economically fragile areas.
David Smythe, Chairman of the Association of Scotland's Self-Caterers (ASSC), said: "The Association of Scotland's Self-Caterers has been campaigning hard for the past year to seek a way of retaining the tax concession for Furnished Holiday Lets, yet comply with EU law.
We have worked together with industry, tourism agencies, business membership organisations and professional institutions right across the UK. We were able to approach The Treasury and politicians with a united voice, and a workable solution of increasing the threshold of days let.
MPs of all Opposition parties in Scotland have supported the industry's views, and have been active in keeping the issue very much alive at Westminster.
We are delighted that the FHL rules will stay, but only the outcome of the General Election and early days of the new Government will provide certainty.
For now, the industry can now plan for the future and deliver the jobs and economic growth needed to help pull the country out of recession." |
| New Video offer for your website AND your EmbraceScotland webpage | |
We have a new offer from Lookb4ubook.tv to provide you with a video for your  website, that can also be linked to your webpage on the EmbraceScotland website. Sites with video drive more traffic to your property and hence can increase your bookings. Lookb4ubook.tv are providing a competition and exclusive offers for a limited period.
The first 25 to sign up will get this FREE!
You can find out more information and view a sample property tour by clicking here (It takes a little while to appear, so be patient!). |
| EmbraceScotland Offer Pages - What do you think? | Over the winter, in response to difficult financial times, we added the Extra Special Winter Offers page. Giving you the opportunity to promote extra VALUE offers. Either in the form of identifiable % discount, £ discount or including extra value opportunities. This was in addition to the existing time related pages of Late Availability and Seasonal Offers. When you posted an offer, you were asked to clearly identify and describe the added value.
Have you any feedback from the Winter Extra Special Offers page?
Do you think a similar Special Offers page for April, May, June would be a good idea?
Please add your comments to the Discussion Forum thread or email sue@assc.co.uk. |
| Homepage Highlights - Book May's Now! | |
April 2010 began our 'new season' of Homepage Highlights for you to use to promote your properties to niche markets direct from our home page. Along with featuring your property on the EmbraceScotland Home page, your property will also be promoted with a dedicated 'All Features page' which will display the Highlight listings for a whole 12 months after the feature appears.
Here is a review of what the next five months will include:
May
Family Friendly - Properties with family friendly features, such as play areas, games, local children's attractions, etc. Championship Golf-Near to one or more golf courses where guests can play or spectate
June
Coastal Cottages -Houses genuinely on the coast, with sea views or beach access etc. Cycling Scotland-Places to stay that welcome cyclists and mountain-bikers, with good local bicycle routes
July
Highland Games - Properties suitable to stay in to visit a local Highland Games Scottish Fishing-Good places to stay for fishing Scotland's lochs and rivers
August
Hillwalking Scotland - Properties in good walking country with easy access to the hills and glens Large Holiday Homes -housing 12+ people September
Luxury Scotland - Properties with upmarket touches. Romantic Retreats -Small & special See the Members' Areafor more details and booking. |
| Daylight Saving Proposals | |
There is a serious proposal to move from the existing arrangement of GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) in the winter and GMT+1 in the summer (summer time) to GMT+1 in the winter and GMT+2 in the summer. For the UK, this will give us a whole hour of lighter evenings all year.
The tourism argument is that the move will boost the UK industry by £3.5bn and provide jobs. The lighter evenings will give visitors more time to go out and do things, and presumably spend more money than they otherwise would do.
In Scotland, we have light evenings in the summer anyway, so the most benefit will be felt in the shoulder seasons during GMT+2, when there are still visitors about. There will therefore be a difference between when the clocks change in March and the end of May, and September until the clocks change to GMT+1 in October.
However, in the winter, Scotland will have particularly dark mornings, with sunrise in Perth on the shortest day at 10am. There are endless arguments back and forth about the benefits, but anyone who works outside will be faced with the problem of what to do with the first hour and a half of the day in the dark. In effect, there will be an hour of daylight lost to the working day. Businesses and farmers can start their days later, but would have to end later, which would have a social impact.
So, is the tourism gain worth the dark winter mornings? Please visit assc.co.uk where there are a couple of documents in Industry News to look at, and please let us know in the Forum how you feel. We have been asked to feed back reaction from the industry into tourism policy.
GMT+1 was tried all year round in the late 1960s/early 1970s, and was abandoned as a bad idea. |
|
Tourism Innovation Day 2010 |
When: Thursday 20th May 2010, 10am - 4.15pm. Registration from 9.30am
Where: John McIntyre Conference Centre, Edinburgh AND Green House, Inverness
Now in its 8th year, Tourism Innovation Day has established itself as the leading innovation event for the Scottish tourism sector. TID provides insight on trends, intelligence, innovation and the visitor experience, drawing on how the best in Scotland are meeting the business challenge of growth.
Book now ( http://www.tourisminnovationday.com/book.cfm ) for this exciting and inspirational event that brings you a great range of outstanding speakers: specialists on trends and insights, successful entrepreneurs who are happy to share their stories, tricks and tips. Ask how they overcame the same difficulties that you face. Additionally, there will be great networking opportunities throughout the packed and varied day. |
| Sustainable Tourism Scotland Spring Workshops |
The first batch of sustainable tourism workshops in Peebles, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Inverness and Stirling throughout February and March received fantastic feedback from the attending delegates, and following their success, STS has scheduled the next set of workshops: Tuesday 27th April - Blythswood Square, Glasgow Tuesday 4th May - Perth Concert Hall, Perth Tuesday 11th May - Easterbrook Hall, Dumfries & Galloway Thursday 13th May - Dundee, Apex City Quay Hotel Tuesday 18th May - Corran Halls, Oban Wednesday 19th May - Ullapool, venue TBC Tuesday 25th May - Rufflets Hotel, St Andrews Thursday 27th May - The Park Hotel, Thurso As before, each FREE workshop will feature a combination of presentations from sustainability experts (including Waste Aware Business, The Energy Savings Trust and Scottish Business in the Community), on specific topics including waste, water, procurement, energy and community engagement as well as presentations from exemplar tourism businesses who provide an inspirational insight into sustainability and its benefits. Online registration is available for the workshops events via the events calendar on our website www.scotland-sustainabletourism.com. |
| Welcome New Members! |
Alison Campbell, Aird Farm Holiday Cottages, Lochgilphead
Ian & Isolde Georgeson, Craigs Lodges & Campsie View, Edinburgh & Drymen
Vicky & Andrew Greaves, The Hayloft, Brechin
Linda Hamilton & Ialene Mitchell, 3 Jedburgh Place, Dundee, Property in Perth
David Johnston, Creag Mhor, North Berwick, property on Isle of Colonsay
Caroline & Ross Millar, The Hideaway Experience, Dundee
Susan Ogg, 2 Lairds Inn Court, Dunkeld
Amanda & Hamish Ryder, Seafield House, Cambridge, property in Lochinver
Jonathan Stewart, The Royal Arch Flat, Dundee, property in Broughty Ferry |
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