Q1. They say more & more people want to book on-line. Is this true?
A. It's true in overall terms. Most such business, however, is for package holidays, air travel & hotels, where personal contact has little importance at the point of booking. For B&Bs & small establishments contact direct with the owner or manager is more important to most customers. Being able to book on-line is not an important facility to the majority of people seeking such accommodation. It will become more so in time, but not until technology use has progressed.
Q2. My QA grading is important to me. Will supporting the campaign prejudice this?
A. A number of emails we have received have requested anonymity because of fears of "retaliation" by VisitScotland. Whatever criticisms we may have of VisitScotland we do not believe that in any circumstances their staff would allow this to influence them in assessing your grading. We have no evidence of any occurrence of such behaviour occurring. Indeed many VisitScotland staff members privately sympathise with providers on this issue though for obvious reasons they are unable to express this publicly. We strongly believe therefore that people need have no fear of any backlash should they publicly express support
Q3. Visitscotland.com claim to have generated millions of pounds of business for providers since they started up. Is this true?
A. It's probable that virtually all such business is simply displaced, i.e. was already coming to Scotland anyway, but was intercepted by the call centre. Prior to visitscotland.com, the STB & ATBs made no effort to sell advance accommodation bookings, seeing it as a duty instead to put people in contact with providers. The National Website displayed providers' full contact details. On-tour bookings at TICs were provided as a service to customers who asked for it, but no sales pressure was applied. With the advent of the visitscotland.com PPP all that changed, with trained sales operatives on performance targets encouraging callers to book with them. ATB enquiry lines were diverted into the call centre providing immediate traffic. Contact details on the website were hidden & the website littered with the call centre number. Tourism statistics reflect no increase that can be attributed to visitscotland.com. All marketing is carried out by VisitScotland using government funds, benefits from which can't be attributed to visitscotland.com.
Q4 E-commerce & on-line booking. What's the difference?
A. E-commerce is any business transacted using the Internet e.g. email, even if payment is made later by other means e.g. cash. On-line booking is when consumers make a booking via a website process, invariably using a credit card, without human intervention. To clarify, on-line booking is e-commerce, but e-commerce occurs often without on-line booking.
Q5. Isn't a national booking system for Scotland a good idea?
A. The majority of consumers still prefer to contact providers rather than make anonymous bookings. However, for those that do wish to book on-line, systems, allowing consumers to select and book their accommodation & other services and products on-line are needed. There are already many such businesses in existence. What is not needed is a heavily state-supported monopolistic system acting to suppress Scottish competitors, and in the process shutting out providers themselves by inhibiting direct communication.
Q6. Isn't it a fact that many providers such as B&Bs aren't up to speed with the Internet and using modern technology and need visitscotland.com to benefit from e-commerce?
A. Actually the majority of providers are using the Internet very effectively & don't need visitscotland.com. It's true some small businesses prefer to use traditional methods and are still working profitably by doing so. Most don't appreciate the problems associated with anonymous bookings and constantly having to update visitscotland.com's availability data.
Q7. I'm told that businesses that have allocated rooms to visitscotland.com are enjoying more business. Doesn't that mean that the more providers that do so, the more trade the country will get?
A. A small minority of providers have found it worthwhile to work closely with visitscotland.com by allocating rooms to them on an on-going & regular basis. In return, visitscotland.com rewards them by channelling much of the trade displaced from the market to those businesses. Bearing in mind that there is no extra business, it is clear that providers who prefer not to work with the company lose a small amount of trade overall. Simple arithmetic shows that the more providers who work with visitscotland.com, the less extra trade each would get. If all providers were to do so, none would see any increase in trade (but all would suffer 10% commission).
Q8. Visitscotland.com say 65% of bookings are going to B&Bs, so less than 35% must be going to hotels. As there are around 5 hotel beds for every B&B one why such a low figure being achieved?
A. All other things being equal, the level of hotel bookings should be 83%. But hotels are more receptive to room allocation so a higher figure would be expected. Most on-line bookings are for hotels too, so 35% must represent a serious failure. One conclusion is that hotels just don't rate visitscotland.com. If that's the case, why should anyone?
Q9. Prior to the onset of visitscotland.com, most small accommodation providers did not expect to pay commission on the business they received through being advertised on the National website. With enquiries being precipitated into commission bearing bookings by the call centre, has this not increased costs to them?
A. Profit margins for small providers are low, so increased costs cannot be absorbed. Most providers who accept call centre bookings do so at a higher rate, either by quoting a different price to the call centre (strictly a breach of the law) or by raising their prices generally. Either way Scotland's accommodation product has become more expensive. When UK tourism is sensitive to price because of the high value of the pound and fuel costs, any extra price increase can only affect tourism adversely.
Q10. Why have more providers not withdrawn support from visitscotland.com by taking their listing off the website?
A. Most providers feel that a presence on the National website is important and complementary to their participation in Quality Assurance. They also continue to hope that some consumers may find the obscured hyperlinks to their contact details. Many are now finding, however, that phone calls and referrals from the National website to their own are becoming infrequent and may question the worth of retaining a presence under these circumstances. Unfortunately many have already taken the view that the whole VisitScotland package is not worthwhile and have abandoned QA.
Q11. What is VisitScotland's function, duty and powers? Is it appropriate that it has contracted with eTourism Ltd to operate a commercial booking system?
A. The Management Statement and Financial Memorandum between the Scottish Executive Education Department and the Scottish Tourist Board (VisitScotland) of June 2003 describes its functions in Paragraph 1.4 describes the functions, duties and powers of VisitScotland namely:
..... to encourage people to visit Scotland and people living in Scotland to take their holidays there;
..... to encourage the provision and improvement of tourist facilities in Scotland; and
..... to give advice to Minister's and Public Bodies on tourism matters.
It will be noted that nothing in the above includes the requirement to operate a commercial booking system.
Q12. Is not visitscotland.com in effect competing with the businesses it holds on the National database supplied by VisitScotland?
A. Effectively your business is being promoted on the National website as a visitscotland.com product, rather than in its own right. Each web entry uses techniques to convey and emphasise the impression that the expected way to book the accommodation is via visitscotland.com. The techniques are:-
..... Presentation of the call centre number in prominent places
..... Use of wording implying that visitscotland.com are involved with the business "To book call us on 0845 2255 121 (my italics) or "Book by phone" linking to the call centre number).
..... Allowing access to provider's own contact details only via an obscure hyperlink so people are less likely to discover them.
The result is that consumers who might prefer to contact and book direct with the provider are discouraged from doing so in order that the business is obtained instead by visitscotland.com. Clearly that's direct competition with all providers by visitscotland.com.
Q13. Isn't it a good idea to have accurate accommodation availability information for the whole of Scotland provided on a single website?
A. Yes, in principle, but it won't happen with visitscotland.com for the following reasons:-
..... Providing allocation or availability information to visitscotland.com increases the probability of customers booking via the call centre, so many providers won't cooperate.
..... Manually updating the call centre every time there's a change in occupancy status is a chore few providers will tolerate.
..... Allocating rooms makes it difficult to accurately reconcile your booking diary with visitscotland.com
In the future, when the majority of providers are broadband enabled and PC based booking systems are more widely available, websites providing regional or national based availability information are likely to be developed. At that time on-line booking will be feasible on the provider's PC at minimal cost to the business. Intermediate Internet booking platforms are likely to disappear.
Q14. What was the basic error made by the Scottish Parliament in setting up the Private Public Partnership?
A. Probably, that to enable the on-line booking market to be exploited, a single booking system for the country would be necessary. In fact, multiple, privately owned booking systems competing on the market provide the necessary services more efficiently, and there is no justification for a monopolistic arrangement.
Q15. Why, if it is unfair competition, have large tourism businesses like hotel chains not complained about the visitscotland.com scheme?
A. Because the scheme isn't hurting them. So few hotel bookings are made that, up to the present, large hotels and agencies don't perceive the company as a threat.
Q16. The 10% "deposit" charged to consumers by visitscotland.com. Shouldn't they describe it as a commission charge?
A. Well, from the consumer's point of view it is a deposit on his booking, whether or not it's a commission charge as well. Most people don't realise the provider gets charged commission unless they read the small print on their T&Cs. If they do find out, most express surprise that the deposit doesn't go to the provider.
Q17. Isn't it the case that the job of developing the website and booking system had to be outsourced to a major IT company such as Atos Origin or SchlumbergerSema to obtain the necessary technology?
A. Not so. Both the original US partner SchlumbergerSema and the French owned partner Atos Origin were involved in technologies quite inappropriate to website and booking system development, which is why the work was originally contracted out to lesser known UK specialist firms. The most recent change involves the new partner, Austrian based Tiscover who have operated tourism websites in Europe and Britain for some years. Their technology is already dated compared to more innovative IT companies. The British Tiscover.co.uk website has providers only in a few locations. IT experts have advised that there are a number of high quality Scottish based IT companies capable of producing world-beating websites that have been ignored by eTourism.
Q18. What part does Partnerships UK play in the makeup of the eTourism Ltd. PPP?
A. Partnerships UK plc, which holds 15% of eTourism Ltd. shares is itself a PPP comprising firms such as Sun Life, Abbey, RBS etc. Formed in 2000 out of HM Treasury, it is described on the PUK website as "a joint venture that bridges the gap between the public and private sectors, with a majority stake held by the private sector." Curiously, in 2005 PUK plc set up a wholly owned company called PUK Investments Ltd., into which in May 2005, it transferred all its shares in eTourism Ltd, for reasons not yet declared.
Q19. visitscotland.com claim that around 65% of visitors to the website are looking to book accommodation rather than simply browsing places to stay. Is this correct?
A. Statistics from independent research on Internet use suggest that the "bookers" to "'lookers" ratio is about 33% to 66%, the reverse of what visitscotland.com say. Visitscotland.com's results are based on their own website statistics, but as the "search for availability" button appears before the "browse our database" one, it is probable that it is being clicked more often. Internet users are notoriously lazy and often do not read text fully, simply clicking the most obvious buttons to get to the next stage. In doing so they are reducing the number of providers returned, as the "search for availability" button excludes all who haven't given recent availability information (around half of the total).
Q20. Will taking back the website into Public ownership be costly due to contractual conditions?
A. Since details of the 10 year contract have not been disclosed it's impossible to estimate the cost of withdrawing from it. As the scheme is failing to perform and running at a loss, however, it may be that a reasonable arrangement may be negotiated with Atos. Whatever that cost may be, it is likely to represent an overall saving compared to the ongoing cost to Scottish tourism businesses in terms of loss of business.
Q21. Would a new VisitScotland system on the basis of the original Ossian project be expensive to set up and run?
A. Development costs of the Ossian system are not relevant to today's situation. Indeed, the database itself is believed to have been re-used by SchlumbergerSema, within the new website. The existing website could be modified to the required specification at little cost and maintenance need not be expensive if the work was contracted out, preferably to a Scottish firm. It is questionable whether a booking system is required as many providers offering such a service already exist. All that would be necessary would be to provide links. If a VisitScotland booking system were to be offered it should do so as an optional service in competition with other agencies while freely promoting direct access with providers as an option at all times. The primary function of the website would be to promote Scotland and enable contact with providers, rather than to sell beds.
Notes,
1. Q&A 21 has been amended slightly in the light of information received from a supporter.
2. Q&A 17 has been updated.