It emerged at this evening’s meeting of the West Council that a lack of funding could mean that Nairn will not have a Tourist Information Point this summer. £2,000 is needed urgently if the successful ‘partnership' information point in the Community Centre is to go ahead again this year. Councillor Rosemary Young pointed out the irony if a town voted the no 2 world destination in an online TripAdvisor poll had no Tourist Information Centre.
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What in the hell is going on to think that Nairns tourism office
ReplyDeletein the Community Centre would close
down for the sake of £2000 a flea
on an elephants arse sum is absolutely shocking, the season is about to start what a poor impression the visitors will have of
this town of ours with no local information on hand as they pass the dilapidated Regal Cinema building, as Victor Meldrew would
say " I cant believe it ".
How does the funding system work?
ReplyDeletetwo thousand pounds is small fry
when you think what must be spent
on the costs for Ramage Jazz,the
forthcoming Nairn Book & Arts Festival, & the productions from Inspire etc etc.
no wonder Mr Meldrew is scratching
his head.
Tourism is vital to the highlands and it is about time for some intelligent medium to long term decision making. It is suicidal to close any tourist facility in Nairn. Goodness knows it is only a shadow of its former self anyway - a very low budget self service DIY affair. We should be investing in improving these services not closing them down. We need tourists to inject cash - to fill the Hotels and B & B's and spend money in the shops bars, cafes and restaurants and protect / create jobs.
ReplyDeleteCould the mighty west council not obtain funding to put up a sign in gaelic saying "closed" if this happens?
ReplyDeleteSo VisitScotland apparently can't find £2000 - £5000 to underwrite the operation of a tourist information office in Nairn?
ReplyDeleteYet senior VisitScotland officials seem to have had no difficulty about finding £150,000 to pay bonuses to themselves - including no less than £75,000 to its chief executive. See details at http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/visitscotland-s-150-000-bonus-bill-to-taxpayer-1.1000532
Not only that, but VisitScotland is still shelling out £40,000 per year for an empty office building in Strathpeffer which it isn't using. Details on the P&J site here http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/1602910?UserKey=
And this is the sort of decision being made by the people who are paying themselves those mighty bonuses presumably for meeting performance targets!
Underlines how scandalous it is that the funds can't be found for the Nairn tourist info office.
Highland Council ought to be pinning VisitScotland much more fiercely to the wall - because this is all public (taxpayers') money, channelled via the Scottish Government and Highland Council into VisitScotland.
Nairn councillors - are you listening?
Closed in Gaelic is 'Dùinte' - willing to waver the translation fee on that one :-)
ReplyDelete