The Covid effect on the Tourist Industry in the St Andrews area

The St Andrews Rotary Club met again via Zoom. President Hamish Tait announced that the Keith Cup had taken place earlier in the week. This was a very competitive tournament played over the Himalayas and the winner was Alan Constable. Club members had also been invited to enter a competition for the best-looking garden. All 22 gardens were seen in a very colourful slide show put together by John Christie. The winner, chosen by Brian Cunningham, Head Gardener at Scone Palace, and John’s daughter, who is his colleague, was Flora Selwyn.

Rotarian Karen Robson then give the members a very interesting talk about how the Covid pandemic affected tourism in St Andrews and especially how it affected her business at Pinewood Guest House.

When lockdown was announced in late March she knew it would affect tourism all over Scotland but assumed it would last for three weeks and then things would be back to normal. However, after the number of Covid cases began to rise and more and more deaths were announced and businesses began to close all over the country Karen began to panic and dread what was ahead. She had had a quiet spell until March and was looking forward to a bumper season accommodating American golfers, weddings, people coming for the University Graduation Week and holiday makers. Over the quiet season she had invested in refurbishing most of her rooms. Day after day cancellations were received from people who did not want to travel. Some of the people who cancelled did rearrange dates for next year.

She was in the lucky position that she had no staff so did not have to deal with all that that involved.

Her business for quite a while was a write-off although the government was able to give some help. She and many others involved in hospitality are still trying to make an insurance claim relating to  business interruption due to Covid 19.

The Guest House opened again in July and bedrooms could have been filled over and over. However for safety reasons Karen decided to start slowly so keeping everything safe.

It has been shown over the summer in Scotland that self-catering businesses have been busier than guest houses, so Karen has decided to move her business model to one of self catering in the future.

Kim Keble-White gave the vote of thanks and said how impressed we all were with the way Karen has taken stock and moved on with new plans for her business.Karen thought running a B&B out of town would be a nice part time job.