The Highland Council is looking for views from visitors to feed into its draft Sustainable Tourism Strategy.
The proposal sets out the Council’s vision and priorities for tourism in Highland, and how the Council will help to achieve these and best support the industry with the many opportunities and challenges it faces.
The strategy will also provide the basis for decision making on how available resources are best utilised.
Proposed plans include sustaining the council’s network of essential amenities, including public conveniences
and motorhome waste services across the Highland region for use by all, and making sure these are high quality and suitably maintained.
The Visitor Levy legislation is not expected to extend to ‘wild’ campervan and motorhome users that choose not to use dedicated campsites.
However, with an estimated 200,000 motorhomes visiting the region each year, the Highland Council says it remains committed to deriving suitable income from campervans and motorhomes to reinvest in our infrastructure and services.
Economy and Infrastructure Committee Chair, Cllr Ken Gowans said: “The tourism sector has seen incredible growth over recent times.
“It has given rise to huge economic and social opportunities across Highland, but it also creates major challenges, particularly the pressure it puts on public services and infrastructure.
“We need to consider the opportunities that will be made possible with the introduction of the Visitor Levy, and also the need for us all to maximise our energy and resources, to drive positive change that will safeguard this growing sector for the future.”
The consultation will run for a period of six weeks and will end at midnight on Tuesday 25 June 2024, with comments to be emailed to tourism@highland.gov.uk.
The collective findings will help shape the final strategy which will be presented to the Economy and Infrastructure Committee later this year.
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1 comment
Best way to deal with it, build walls around villages, towns and cities, call them prisons. Tourism keeps shops going. remove that and the economy suffers, our towns are almost dead. Its only snobs who want the places for themselves.