Golf Tourism

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Wednesday 27th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

I am very proud to represent North East Fife and the town of St Andrews, which is known worldwide as the home of golf. As the local Member of Parliament, I have to declare a rather unusual interest: the St Andrews Links Order Confirmation Act 1974, passed in this place, designates the local MP as one of the eight trustees of the St Andrews Links Trust, which manages the seven courses in the town, including the Old Course.

This is a special year for the home of golf, because we are celebrating the bicentenary of the birth of Old Tom Morris, the founding father of golf. Old Tom won The Open four times, and his victory in 1867 at the age of 46 means that he is the oldest person to have ever won the claret jug. He finished runner up in 1868, behind the youngest ever winner, his 17-year-old son, Young Tom Morris. Old Tom was also a prolific course designer, contributing to more than 50 courses across the UK and Ireland, including with the famous 18th hole on the Old Course, which bears his name.

It is the story of legends such as Old Tom that make golf in Fife world famous. When people come and play they become part of a history that stretches all the way back to the 15th century, encompassing on its way Old Tom, Young Tom and the modern greats of the game, who are set to return to Fife when the 150th Open is held in St Andrews in 2022. It is a living history, too. Anyone who knows me knows that I am much more likely to be picking up a shinty stick than a golf club, but any member of the public can get a tee time for the links course in St Andrews. There is now far more recognition of women’s golf than ever before, although work on that front is still ongoing, and an increasingly strong emphasis on accessibility, as I saw last year when I attended part of the Phoenix cup, disability golf’s equivalent of the Ryder cup. I was pleased that the organisers, including Scottish Disability Golf & Curling, were able to go ahead with the tournament, in the face of huge logistical challenges.

When we put all these things together, we see that it is no wonder that Fife and St Andrews are the No. 1 destinations on many a golfer’s bucket list. From April to October, tourists, predominantly from overseas and particularly from North America, travel to Fife and contribute to our local economy. A whole ecosystem is built up around golf tourism. Of course that means the golf clubs, but it also means the inbound tour operators, who arrange tee times, hotels and travel for many international tourists; the minibus drivers; the caddies; the B&Bs; the guest houses and hotels; the brilliant local restaurants; our fantastic Fife distilleries; and all their employees and suppliers. Every pound spent by a golf tourist has a huge multiplier effect. Up to 100 golf facilities attract almost all overseas golf tourists to Scotland and generate at least £300 million in revenues. As the House can imagine, when the coronavirus pandemic hit, the impact on clubs, small business owners, the people of my constituency and other areas around Scotland and the UK where golf plays an important part was huge.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Member for giving way in what is a brilliant speech so far; I look forward to the rest of it. I stress that although I may be the proxy of my hon. Friend the Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) tonight, I speak in my own capacity as the Member for North Antrim.

Golf tourism in Northern Ireland is, as the hon. Member has indicated in respect of other parts of the UK, absolutely stunning. It has changed the economy, especially in North Antrim and other parts of the country. In fact, we look forward to the return of the ISPS Handa cup, the Northern Ireland Open, the Irish Open and, indeed, the Open in the foreseeable future. Does the hon. Member agree that the Government must get behind promoting and developing golf tourism, because it is one of the key ways in which we will lift our economy post covid?

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I have already made my apologies, via the hon. Gentleman, to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for the fact that my physical participation this evening has prevented him from contributing virtually. Yes, I absolutely agree: obviously, I believe that Fife and St Andrews are top of any golfer’s bucket list, but clearly all parts of the UK are. We are a worldwide leader in the sport.

Golf tourism’s particular reliance on international tourism—and particularly on American tourists, who were subject to quarantine restrictions—meant that in effect the 2020 season was sadly over before it began. That has had a particular impact on inbound tour operators, many of which operate in my constituency. Last year, I organised a roundtable with the Scottish Incoming Golf Tour Operators Association—SIGTOA—and a number of local operators, and they told me of the difficulties they had faced over the previous months.

One tour operator said to me,

“as of yesterday and today, I have received two separate cancellations from Australian groups who had rescheduled from this year to 2021…Yet again this is a prime example that Golf Tourism and our businesses are being crippled, and will continue to be crippled, not just for 6 months but what is likely to be 18-24 months.”

Another Fife-based company told me:

“With nearly 40 years in package tourism, we have experienced a number of challenges as the business was affected by various national and international events. We simply battened down the hatches and worked through it all, using our own resources and never a penny piece of public money.

Our company (as with those of our fellow operators) has proved very resilient—but Covid is stress-testing that resilience to breaking point.”

The picture for them is pretty bleak.

It is worth mentioning that, under the current restrictions in Scotland, people can play golf, with very strict limitations. When the all-party parliamentary group on golf, of which I am a vice-chair, shared information on this debate on social media, many people got in touch regarding the current restrictions in Wales, England and Northern Ireland, which exclude golf from the sports currently permitted. I hope the Minister will be able to indicate what plans the Government have for golf’s reopening.

Part of the difficulty is that financial support is not getting to where it needs to—and this applies not just to tour operators but across the sector. For instance, the furlough has been less useful in an industry in which there is much seasonal employment and self-employment, as I have said previously in Parliament. In some respects, clubs themselves have had the best of it, particularly those whose business models are weighted towards membership, as subscriptions can be utilised to retain staff and maintain the facilities. Clearly, though, there will be pressures on subscriptions going forward, and many clubs have a mixed business model in which visitor income plays a significant part. Crail Golfing Society was founded in 1786 and is the seventh oldest club in the world; it lost £600,000 in visitor revenue in 2020.

Scottish Government support has not always hit the mark either. Back in May, I met golf clubs from across Fife, and they explained that many of them were ineligible for business grants because their rateable values were too high as a result of the land taken up by the courses. They needed support but were sadly excluded.

I was contacted by one constituent who runs a golf tourism business in St Andrews. Some 95% of his customers are from America. He provides travel services, but because his business is vehicles, he does not have premises or pay rates, which means he is not classed as part of the tourism and hospitality sector. He has found himself excluded from support. He told me:

“My business is highly reliant on”—

tourism—

“being open and available as I am part of the tourist supply chain for some major hotels and premises in St Andrews...my business has had no clients at all in 2020.”

It is clear that there are huge challenges.

I welcomed the Scottish Government’s December announcement of further support for tourism and hospitality, including a specific fund for inbound tour operators, but that money was initially promised on 9 December and the fund opened for offers of interest only last week. January is a challenging month at the best of times, and I doubt that any operator will receive money until February—that is two months after the first announcement.

At least support for Scottish operators is on its way. The UK Government are yet to provide specific funding for inbound tour operators, so I encourage the Minister to engage with UKinbound’s proposals for a £45 million resilience fund. That surely is an investment worth making, given that normally, international visitors contribute £28 billion to the UK economy every year and support half a million jobs directly. That would have an impact on my constituency too, because lots of UK-wide operators run tours that incorporate England, Wales and Northern Ireland as well as Scotland.

The need for support has only increased following today’s announcement about tightening border restrictions. Back in the autumn, the whole focus for clubs, operators and businesses was, “Let’s make it through to the 2021 season.” March and April 2021 promised a potential return to viability. That expectation only increased following the incredibly positive news in November about the development and approval of covid-19 vaccines. Now, as we administer hundreds of thousands of vaccine doses a day, the prospect of relaxing restrictions when the warmer weather is here looks more possible.

The sector had been positive. Operators’ assessment of the situation has been that the demand for international customers is very much there if people can find a safe and direct way to travel. Operators previously hoped that that would be secured by a combination of the vaccine roll-out and increased testing. Clearly, it is much more challenging now. Quite simply, if the 2021 season is also cancelled due to travel restrictions, as seems increasingly likely, then unless further support is given, many of the businesses I have mentioned will have to close.

That is true not just for tour operators but for many of those businesses that rely on the income generated by those tourists. Let me give another example. I was contacted by a very small tourism business operating in St Andrews and all over Scotland. My constituent and her husband drive golfers and tourists about, and they work for three different tour operators. They are currently on universal credit and previously received a self-employment support grant. She told me:

“I see that foreign travel may not happen til 2022. Being as our business depends on foreign travel there is no way without adequate funding we can make it til 2022. So it’s about time we heard some facts so people can decide about their business as we are just getting into untold debt and don’t know what to do.”

Yesterday, in the urgent question on border restrictions, I told the Home Secretary that what business operators and the public needed was clarity, certainty and notice. Given the expectation that the Scottish Government are considering more stringent travel restrictions, coupled with the Home Secretary’s subsequent statement today, I am concerned that we have none of those things.

Uncertainty is corrosive to these businesses, and it is a huge source of stress and anxiety to small business owners across the country. As we marked the tragic threshold of 100,000 deaths in the UK yesterday, I appreciate how fine the margins of such decisions are and the ongoing need to ensure public health, but I hope that the Minister can set out the likely considerations for a return to international tourism.

With the new travel restrictions, clubs and businesses that rely on international tourism face an increasingly bleak picture for summer 2021. With the prospect of domestic restrictions being lifted as the population is vaccinated, the Government must commit to supporting the golf industry, which relies so much on inbound international tourism. We cannot on the one hand start opening up the economy domestically this summer, while on the other failing to provide support to those businesses that rely on inbound tourism. It would be a disaster for so many of them and would potentially devastate the domestic market too.

That means listening to the businesses. One problem that I am aware of is with deposits. Many customers were initially happy to roll over their 2020 bookings into 2021. They have spent money on deposits to secure tickets, bookings, hotel accommodation—all manner of things—for trips this summer. The businesses do not currently have or hold that money. If customers start to cancel, the Government will need to support inbound tourism businesses that are struggling to return those deposits. They will also need to support the golf clubs that were relying on the prospect of inbound tourism this summer.

There is a real opportunity here. If these businesses survive until summer 2022, we will hopefully see the Open return to St Andrews for its 150th edition. That will be a huge opportunity for celebration, but if we are going to get there, the Government need to take those steps on clarity, support and listening to the concerns and needs of businesses in the sector. If the Government can do that, we can make sure that the fantastic, vibrant golf businesses of the home of golf and elsewhere across the UK make it through their biggest challenge yet. I urge the Government to listen and to take those steps, and I hope that the Minister will be able to meet me and businesses in my constituency to discuss what further steps might be taken.