Scots tourist board bounty

In sharp contrast with the budget cuts at the English Tourist Board, the Scottish Tourist Board (STB) has received an extra £1.5m in funding from the Scottish Office.

The increase takes the total budget for Scotland to £16.7m in the forthcoming year, a rise of almost 10% over past year.

A spokesman for the STB said the extra funding would go towards a marketing campaign to increase domestic tourism, particularly from England.

But according to a spokeswoman for the Scottish Office, the increase is a one-off to cover extra costs this year. For 1996 and 1997 the budget would be reduced to £15.3m, she said.

The news of the STB's budget increase is a bitter pill for the English Tourist Board (ETB), whose budget for 1995 was cut to £10m from £11.3m in 1994.

"The ETB has suffered yet another, and in my view quite unjustified, cut in grant-in-aid," ETB chairman Adele Biss told Caterer.

"We will continue to make the case for additional funding from the public and private sector in order to promote and develop the good reasons to holiday or take a break in England."

The Wales Tourist Board, meanwhile, was expecting to hear details of its budget for the coming year as Caterer went to press.