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Chapter five
2000 – 2010 - Guiding in the 21st century
The new millennium got off to a shaky start with a survey showing that overseas visitor numbers had dropped by 11 per cent blamed largely on the strength of the pound. It was not good news for the guiding world and the next decade was to see further tough challenges including the 9/11 terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in New York in 2001 resulting in a fall in visitors from the USA. Scotland was also hit by the consequences of a foot and mouth disease outbreak in the same year.
The STGA board brought in a number of austerity measures including introducing a booking fee for tour operators who wished to use the services of a guide. STGA Chairman Wilma Kelloe told members that, although the income from Booking Commissions had fallen in 2002, the success of a booking fee, which was introduced in July 2001, had more than compensated for this.
No new students were taken on during 2001 and the board looked at reducing training costs. Printing and postage costs were cut by having fewer issues of the Guidelines newsletter. The Scottish Tourist Board was renamed VisitScotland and given a major shake up. As the decade continued international visitors’ numbers grew to 2.79 million in 2007 but then the global financial crisis of 2008 arrived resulting in a fall to 2.36 million in 2010. Despite this challenging background many STGA members did well in the first decade partly thanks to the newly formed Scottish Parliament following a referendum in 1997 for the country to have its own devolved Government.
The opening of the new Scottish Parliament at Holyrood in 2004 presented the STGA with an opportunity to offer their services for tours around the new building. Doreen Boyle, who was STGA Office manager at the time, said it was deemed essential that Blue Badge guides would do these tours as they already did in Parliament in London.
‘On further enquiry, we were advised that the tender for the guiding contract would go out EU-wide – quite a challenge!’ she said.
As things progressed it became clear that the two companies being considered were Mercat Tours and the STGA.
‘After much discussion it was decided we should try to join forces and quote together rather than compete with each other and possibly lose the contract!’ said Doreen. ‘What followed was a brilliant series of debates and discussions with both interested parties that worked extremely well as we sought to submit an acceptable tender. Both Tom Caskie, who was STGA treasurer, and I had past experience in working on large detailed international tenders, Tom in the Engineering industry and me in the nuclear industry, and this proved very valuable as we tackled the great amount of work needed to work out the intricate financial considerations and we were also assisted by many members of STGA to provide the very detailed and lengthy tender submission that was required by EU regulations. Mercat Tours’ contribution was invaluable.
‘Finally, in September 2004 we were advised we had been successful and then followed a mad rush to be ready for the opening of the new building in October 2004. We initially committed ourselves to providing five to six guides per day for tours throughout each day that the Parliament was not in session. That meant Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday when Parliament was not sitting and 7 days a week when it was not in session. We had tours from 9am until 4pm each day. Parliament were quite clear about what they wanted included and the route we had to take through the building and they insisted the tours should always have the same content.
‘We had very little time to develop and provide the specialist training needed by our 76 Parliament Guides and to carry out the written and practical examination of the guides.
The sterling efforts made by Ros Newlands and Wilma Kelloe of the STGA and Frances Mann of Mercat and all the trainers paid off and we were ready for the opening in October 2004. Dot in the office, as the programme scheduler, cheerfully put in a superhuman amount
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