IT IS the first impression of Scotland for millions of potential visitors. But visitscotland.com, the beleaguered website struggling to fulfil its role as the global gateway to Scotland's £5 billion tourism industry, is under fire yet again.
Alasdair Morgan, the SNP MSP, has written to new tourism minister Jim Mather condemning the site as unfit for purpose and expressing concern that the public-private partnership behind its creation was approved despite "clear evidence of non-viability
at many stages of the process".
The website has been a commercial failure, and has lost millions of pounds - chiefly taxpayers' money - since its inception five years ago.
Criticism of visitscotland.com has become a leitmotif in the history of Scotland's national tourism agency. But this time there is a sense ministers may be poised to act. The new SNP administration at Holyrood has already hinted at an overhaul of the structure, purpose and funding of VisitScotland. A concomitant change of direction for the organisation's embattled website would be a logical move.
Mr Morgan said: "The more I have looked through the history of how visitscotland.com has been arrived at and the concerns expressed at VisitScotland board level at what the website is achieving and what it is meant to achieve, I am wondering if the website is not broken beyond redemption.
"There are large parts of the tourist industry which are not using it, both big hotel chains and small accommodation providers, so many people unhappy with it who have tried to use it, and those concerns come from many angles, from VisitScotland board members down.
"When you look at the minutes of VisitScotland's board and the concerns that have been expressed over a considerable period of time, which contrasts with the soft soap we have been getting in public about how it is improving and how it's only going to be great, we can see clearly that faith has not been shared at the highest level."
On the surface, visitscotland.com is a success. It has more than five million unique users every year and has attracted almost half a million bookings worth more than £60m since its launch in 2002. Its contact centre responds to 4,000 e-mails and 10,000 phone calls a week, and the site now represents 60 per cent of all Scotland's tourism businesses.
It also compares well with similar sites - consistently ranking among the world's most visited national tourism portals - and scores highly in customer satisfaction surveys. It receives more visitors than the combined total of its major UK equivalents including enjoyengland.com, visitwales.com and visitlondon.com.
But its problems can be traced back to its creation as a public-private partnership. As a commercial entity, its primary aim is to encourage users to book travel and accommodation through its own site - charging commission to the hotelier or guest-house owner. But many believe it should be an information resource for events and attractions, enticing visitors to choose Scotland as the destination for their next holiday and helping them plan their trip. Critics say visitscotland.com is no more than a poor imitation of Expedia or Travelocity, but with a bit of information about Scotland thrown in.
"There is an essential conflict of interest which makes it unworkable," said Alan Keith, who helps run a B&B in Castle Douglas and has been a long-running thorn in the side of the visitscotland.com project. "Its interests are commercial and at odds with those of the tourism industry. Most people go to the site to find out about Scotland and decide whether to visit and what to do. Instead, they are directed to make a booking. It is shutting doors in the faces of our customers."
Mr Keith also drew attention to the website's ongoing losses - it has never made a penny - and its prospects for success. "The operating loss of £1.5m in 2005 was similar to the loss the previous year and the year before that. It has no hope of breaking even. It is a broken model, an unworkable concept."
Other industry leaders are more equivocal, and reject suggestions the website should be overhauled.
Ian Gardner, vice-chairman of the Scottish Tourism Forum, said: "On the whole, the website is improving and it has taken on board the criticism made in the early years.
"Obviously smaller tourism businesses don't like the idea of having to pay commission - that is an ongoing concern for many."
Marco Truffelli, chief executive of visitscotland.com and a former leading hotelier, said: "Mr Morgan appears to have been principally informed by biased observations from a long term vociferous opponent of visitscotland.com.
"We are constantly striving to give consumers, accommodation providers and our other tourism suppliers the best service possible.
"We always take on board any constructive feedback and look to act positively on it."
• Additional reporting by Colin Donald
• VISITSCOTLAND.COM expects to host 16 million visits and seven million unique users during 2007
• 65 per cent of accommodation booked through the site goes to B&B and guest-houses
• The site has secured more than 470,000 bookings, generating over £60 million since launch
• It lost £1,515,758 during 2005 - only slightly less than it lost during 2004
• It has never made a profit, despite being created as a public-private partnership
• According to VisitScotland, seven in ten visitors to the site are surfing in order to book accommodation
• visitscotland.com is the trading name for Etourism Ltd, a private company of which VisitScotland is the largest shareholder, with 36 per cent of shares, followed by Austrian firm Tiscover with 35 per cent, Partnerships UK with 22 per cent and Atos Origin with 7 per cent
• Visitscotland.com recently launched a "web in the box" product to allow B&B owners to create their own commercial website - but only about 30 have signed up for it
The full article contains 991 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
