Abstract
Purpose During the 2014 independence referendum in Scotland, there was much debate about the future broader political direction of the country but little discussion about its impact on Scottish tourism. The purpose of this paper is to explore and discuss the impact of the different future political options from a tourism perspective. Design/methodology/approach From the literature, four main political drivers were identified, and using Scotland as a reference, they were used in discussions with six experts to explore how tourism could develop under different political options. The outcomes from these discussions were combined by the researcher to develop in conjunction with the experts an agreed discussion note. This discussion note formed the basis for the exploration of the impact on tourism under four different future political options. Findings Of the four political options (devolution limited, devolution plus, devolution max/fiscal autonomy/federation and full independence), it is clear that all options had different positive and negative impacts for tourism. The devolution max option, however, was perceived as most damaging to tourism, because tourism would not be considered a priority, relative to other policy issues. The study concludes with six key lessons that destination management organisations (DMOs) should contemplate when considering the impacts of different political futures. Research limitations/implications Being focussed on one country with a strong political party whose raison d'être is independence makes it difficult to extrapolate the results. Nevertheless, given the strong commonality of agreement of the impacts within the experts consulted, this study suggests that DMOs can and should engage in political debates about the future of tourism in their destination. Originality/value The 2014 independence referendum in Scotland failed to achieve its primary aim of independence for Scotland, but it did provide space for other political options to be explored. This paper provides a perspective on how tourism could develop under different political options, and so help raise its profile in any future debates, both in Scotland and other destinations.
Highlights
Scotland is a small country, it has been at the forefront of tourism futures’ thinking through the use of scenario-planning as a tool in developing its tourism sector and in establishing the world’s first scenario-planning team within VisitScotland, the national tourism marketing organisation for Scotland
From the first tentative report making use of scenario-planning in Scotland (Price, 1999), which was driven by the first serious debates about devolution, discussions about the implications for devolution/independence have not really appeared in the scenario-planning reports emerging from VisitScotland nor in industry discussion papers about the future of tourism in Scotland
What little research that has been published on the impacts on tourism of the referendum of September 2014 has been weak, lacks consensus and is inconclusive, and despite the rejection of independence by the people of Scotland, there still remains “much concern among industry stakeholders about the future of the Scottish tourism product” (Cuffy and Danby, 2014, p. 6)
Summary
Scotland is a small country, it has been at the forefront of tourism futures’ thinking through the use of scenario-planning as a tool in developing its tourism sector and in establishing the world’s first scenario-planning team within VisitScotland, the national tourism marketing organisation for Scotland. As Wagstaff (1999) has noted, the member states of the European Union (EU) have for the most part not experienced any major political, ethnic or religious strife in recent years. This is not to say that there have not been problems in parts of Europe, for example, in Northern Ireland and in the former states of Yugoslavia, and in 2015, in Ukraine. In recent years, along with the expansion of the EU, there has developed the twin tracks of increasing centralisation of power at the European level and the demand for more control at the local level. The election in 1967 of the first Scottish National Party (SNP) member to the UK Parliament is a reflection of this demand
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