Restrictions on cruise ship business can’t come soon enough
Hopefully, there will soon come a time of sober reflection on the real and lasting negative effect cruise line business has on local communities.
The proprietors of various hospitality businesses are clearly pleased with the extra income accruing from cruise ship passengers.
Fish suppers-a-plenty as largest cruise of year boosts harbourfront chippy
Since the Scottish Government, in their infinite wisdom, have decided that hospitality businesses are entitled to various levels of non-domestic rates relief, from 25 to 100 per cent, Shetland Islands Council forego the revenue they would collect from those businesses if those reliefs were not in place.
This foregone revenue is then paid to Shetland Islands Council through the annual block grant they receive from the Scottish Government.
The monies that are used to pay block grants are derived from general taxation.
Therefore, tax payers are subsidising the businesses that the Scottish Government have decided are entitled to non-domestic rates relief.
There is no established method of accounting for the evident disruption and displacement cruise ships cause to communities that are blighted by their visits.
Across the globe, ports are taking decisive action to restrict, and in some cases prohibit, cruise ship port calls because of the serious detrimental societal, economic, and environmental effects of cruise ship business.
The day when similar action is taken by governments in the UK to discourage volume tourism, particularly in the form of cruise, and to re-establish and encourage the sustainable visitor sector that existed long before the centralised marketeers took over can’t come soon enough.
Leslie Sinclair
Kirkwall
Orkney
