Petition against visitscotland

The Campaign To

Reclaim visitscotland.com

Book Direct

Web Links

Dumfries and Galloway

Financial Performance of vs.com

Web in a Box

QA Statistics.

Since 2000, there has been a clear and significant fall in the number of B&Bs, (27%), Guesthouses (14%) and Hotels (17%), subscribing to the VisitScotland QA scheme. Whilst VS point to the fact that the total stock of visitor accommodation in Scotland has declined overall since 2000, this alone is unlikely to account for such dramatic falls-and indeed one must ask the question 'why has there been this decline?' We can surmise that some B&B operators and Guesthouse owners have given up trading, cashing in on the rising property market. We cannot, however, dismiss the general dissatisfaction with VS and vs.com as a major contributing factor in the QA drop in the serviced sector. The self-catering sector has shown quite an increase, significantly between 2004 and 2006. Much of this increase could be attributed to the growth in 'investment' purchasing, but it is also highly likely to be a by-product of farm diversification schemes---funded by Scottish Enterprise with QA an integral part of the 'deal'. The general unease with which the new QA grading for self-caterers was greeted may have been counterbalanced, to some degree, by the move by the ASSC to insist on QA for full membership.

Return visitscotland.com to the Public Sector

Support The Campaign Now

Add your name and details to our list of supporters to receive campaign updates.
You can also support the joint EU complaint against VisitBritain, VisitEngland and VisitScotland.

Website relaunch under review

Supporters of the campaign and members of ADGAP have been asked to comment on the re-launched website and many emails have been received. We will shortly carry out an analysis of the information, but in the meantime contents of emails received can be viewed at Read more. The charge for a basic listing on visitscotland.com has almost tripled to £85 from April 1st. Comments on whether this is good value for money would be appreciated!

Holyrood

On Wednesday November 15th. 2006 Alan Keith with Liz Chambers appeared before the Petitions Committee at the Scottish Parliament. The proceedings can be viewed by following this link . The meeting and subsequent discussions succeeded in raising most of the issues crucial to our campaign. The committee decided to seek opinion from the various representative bodies within the industry, such as the STF, ASSC etc. and provide their comments to us as the next stage. We have pointed out that many small providers are not represented by any organisation. Those of you who are members of such organisations can help, however, by ensuring that your support for the campaign is known by those running the organisations.

We are receiving many emails indicating support for the campaign, praise for the presentation at the committee meeting, and highlighting individuals' feelings about, and experiences to do with, VisitScotland & visitscotland.com. We will collate these and use them in evidence in the future if required. Please feel free to add to this weight of evidence by sending an individual email to mail@visitsouthwestscotland.com. Ensure you put RECLAIMVS in the subject line and state whether you agree to your email (including contact details) being passed to others and/or made public with your name and geographical location (NOT ADDRESS) included. Thank You.

Effects of eTourism Ltd.'s operations

Businesses Suffer

Scotland's National Website and Scotland, the brand, was handed over to the Private Public Partnership, eTourism Ltd (visitscotland.com) in 2002. Since then accommodation providers throughout the country have suffered; through commission extracted from hijacked business, reduced direct referrals and many other problems due to the efforts of eTourism Ltd to earn profits for their shareholders from Scotland's people and its visitors.

Scotland suffers

Scotland is suffering loss of tourism revenue due to poor service to potential tourists. The primary function of VisitScotland should be "to encourage people to visit Scotland and people living in Scotland to take their holidays there", not to advertise a commercial callcentre and booking service. Learn More

Visitors Suffer

Hidden contact details mean visitors are unable to choose freely between booking direct with the provider and booking via a call centre or on-line. The commission charged by visitscotland.com may be passed on to the visitor, thereby inflating holiday prices in Scotland.

Booking Agencies Suffer

Under European Community Law, it is illegal for the governments of member countries to support individual undertakings, including PPPs where competition is distorted as a result. By providing support in kind to eTourism, including millions of pounds of advertising of the website & call centre number, we believe VisitScotland to be guilty of a breach of Section 87 (1) of the EC treaty. Learn More

Web Designers Suffer

The introduction of Web-in-a-box scheduled for Spring 2007 will mean that visitscotland.com will be in direct competition with many small web design and internet companies who have worked hard over the years to develop successful web sites and working relationships with local accommodation providers.

THIS STATE OF AFFAIRS CANNOT BE ALLOWED TO CONTINUE.

We believe that the only logical solution is for the website to be returned to public sector control and developed as a marketing tool for Scotland the country, rather than a commercial accommodation selling and booking system.

Landmark Ruling

Headlines