Tourism

This will establish how important tourism is to the island and the impact of tourism on the ability of residents to travel. Day trip and overnight stayers will have different requirements – the presence of day-trippers will largely reflect crossing times, tourist attractions on-island and the proximity of major centres of population or other centres of tourism. Day trippers could potentially justify evening sailings to allow a full day on the island, which would benefit the evening economy.

For some islands, the ferry service acts as a ‘cap’ on car-based tourism numbers and the number of cars going to the island closely mirrors the number of cars leaving the island over an in-season week. This will be heavily influenced by weekend ferry services coinciding with established holiday changeover patterns. Car-based tourism is typically a significant proportion of tourism in many islands given the dispersed nature of self-catering accommodation in particular and the need to carry families, pets, luggage, outdoor equipment etc.

There has been a significant increase in tourists travelling in motorhomes and campervans in recent years in both owned and hired vehicles. These vehicles can take up a significant volume of deck space.

Whilst the cap imposed by ferry capacity could be seen as an effective barrier against ‘over-tourism’, particularly with respect to island road infrastructure, it may also be seen as an inhibitor by the local tourism sector. The island’s tourism offer (including accommodation) will generally reflect this ‘cap’.

With respect to tourism, the ‘need’ here is that the ferry service is:

• Reliable enough so that tourism is not deterred.
• Potentially expanded to facilitate more sustainable / higher levels of tourism.
  • This could be through increased frequency, deployment of additional or larger vessels at peak periods (either through cascades within the existing fleet or the introduction of new vessels over time) or through improved public transport links.

It should be noted that data on tourism volumes in Scotland, in general, and tourism in the islands in particular, is currently very poor.

Potential indicators

• Ratio of (i) shoulder (April-June, September, October) and (ii) peak (July, August), to Winter (November to March) car and passenger carryings plus equivalent data for the relevant airport if available.
  • High ratios indicate high levels of tourism, although these figures do conflate resident and visitor holiday travel
• Recording of motorhome / campervan carryings where the data allows this.