I know IABU.... Scottish Highlands tourism

[Firefightress1]

I know IABU as we were tourists before we moved to Skye but I'm absolutely gobsmacked by how busy it has been over the weekend. I know its not even the busiest time yet but I'm already struggling to get diesel to get to work and the coop is stripped bare. Had a campervan nearly drive into us earlier on the wrong side of the road at a junction and people parking in passing places on single track roads which means traffic is at a standstill.
We always followed the rules and pulled in/let people overtake but there seems to be a new selfish version of a tourist. I know we need to get used to it but people just blatantly disregarding signage and peeing/sh*tting all over the place is just awful!
I honestly don't remember it as bad as this when we were tourists but i guess we didnt live here then
There are so many facebook groups trying to make improvements but the tour buses and guides still insist on stopping at closed sights and encouraging groups to force open gates and move cones to gain access. Its causing so many issues to wildlife and repair operations that are badly needed.

Part of the problem is that a lot of people don't spend money locally and the local councils who are responsible for cleaning and facilities don't see any benefit.

As for the potshots at the government, oh please🙄

We do, we use supermarkets, cafes, pubs, gift shops, boat trips and DH usually gets some of the Island whiskies. Last year we caught a ferry to Lewis too and had a couple of nights in Stornoway.

People talking about charging to enter national parks - in the US these are separate, managed areas of wilderness with an entire dedicated workforce to run and manage them. They are not inhabited.

There simply isn't anything like that in the UK. Even the designated national parks areas are working, farmed inhabited areas. How would you charge entry, and who?
The suggestion of confiscating road-legal vehicles for driving on a public road is ridiculous.

As I've said early, antisocial behaviour from visitors makes me really angry but has absolutely nothing to with people moving to the area to be residents, and some of the attitudes here towards individuals who are working and contributing to communities is awful. There are some islands that would be uninhabited now, such as Coll, if new people hadn't settled there.

And I'm not sure how anyone in their right mind can be defending the SNP at present.

That's great to hear but I have heard some people quite happily admit to making a point of "going cheap" and spending as little as they can because "the UK is expensive".

I live in the Highlands and yes it's been ruined by tourists. Not all the tourists but the camper vans are definitely a huge issue. We don't have the infrastructure, roads, public toilets etc to cope with all the tourists. They come here to view the beautiful areas and leave behind rubbish, mess and sewage.

If there is insufficient infrastructure to support the tourists then of course that's a failure of local and national government. Tourism is a major source of income. As others have said, the locals are very happy to take the tourist money.

Is it still the case that out of the 28 ministerial posts (out of a total of 64 MSPs) Yousaf still hasn't appointmened a minister for tourism?

I very much agree with this. It’s not difficult to sort out residents’ parking passes, improving rubbish collection and penalising crap parking. Tourists are going to come so you might as well manage it properly.

I also note that in France there are shedloads of well advertised Elsan disposal points - most motorway/A road lay-bys have them. Never seen this in the U.K.

Sadly it's the same in Devon and Cornwall too.

Because in many small communities, there simply aren't enough people!

Most small communities only benefit from tourism for around 4-6 months of the year. Although some of the bigger hotels and resorts might bring in seasonal workers and accommodate them on site, it's not uncommon for the people who actually live there year round to have two or even three jobs, as you can't rely on year-round tourism.

So at the height of the season, the local population will be flat-out anyway.

The alternative might be to bring people in from other areas, but populations are small up here anyway - Scotland has a total population of 5.5 million, most of whom (myself included) live in the central belt, far from the rural tourist hot spots - so you'd just be stripping away a resource from another community.

Added to that, the sort of jobs you're talking about are generally minimum wage at best, and people - assuming they own a car - may be unwilling or unable to pay out the high cost of fuel (and fuel in remote areas is generally more expensive than in towns and cities).

The council could bus them in? Perhaps, but again you're talking about remote areas that can be hours apart, so adding hours of commuting time onto a physical, low-paid job?

It's not a simple fix, I'm afraid.

'They' are not all of us. This 'they' has just been to Morar- 4 nights in a great campsite (pricey but worth it), spent locally in shops/ restaurants/ gift-shops/ local ferry and lots of time on the amazing beach leaving not a trace.

Not all campervan owners are 'clowns' or 'scum' as quoted previously on this thread.

The only issue was coming home and the toilets at Glencoe are closed for renovation and the ones at Ballahuilish due to vandalism. Where are you supposed to pee? The gift shop owner kindly let me and DS use theirs, but I bought things whilst there.

As a local I can assure you many camper vans owners are a problem. Obviously not all as many are respectful, use proper campsite and tidy up after themselves. The ones that I have found are problematic are the ones that leave rubbish and feces all over the place and the ones that have no idea how to drive on single track roads or what the rules are around passing places etc. They come here too see the beauty of the Highlands then treat it like a waste ground. Also ones who want to climb our mountains but are ill prepared to do so wind up ending up being rescued.

The toilets issue you encountered was what I meant. The Highlands doesn't have the infrastructure to cope with the sheer volumes of tourists. Everything is so wide spread getting staff to clean them can be an issue too.

👏👏👏👏👏

It took nearly an hour to get out of a supermarket car park yesterday in a well known Lake District town. I've never seen so many cars, even by Lake District standards it was rammed.

The rubbish left behind is just awful, and ignorant visitors chop down tree branches to make fires on the lake shores, as if green living wood will burn. Just idiotic behaviour.

But litter is a problem everywhere and getting worse. Most roadsides are an eyesore, even motorways. How did this behaviour become the norm?

It's makes me so angry- I can't imagine what it's like for you living there. In my mind, fellow lovers of the outdoors and natural world would be like minded people who want to preserve our precious land and treat it with the reverence it deserves. It makes no sense to me at all. People are just beyond the pale sometimes.

Highland Council have a lot to contend with as it's such a huge area. I suppose I hadn't actually thought about no staff to clean them. The shop owner told me he applied to buy the toilets so he could maintain them properly, but it was a legal minefield. Shame.

Re behaviour, I think that there is an element (significant) who know that any applicable sanctions will never be applied and anyone asking them to clean up their mess will be given an earful or worse. I hate this kind of appalling anti-social inconsiderate behaviour but without effective deterrents it won't stop.

It's infuriating as I love were I live as do most Highlanders. Most locals welcome tourists but not those that destroy our area. The way the lochs have been treated is awful at times. We spend a lot of time in the lochs over the summer and to see them getting ruined is horrible. They are naturally beautiful and clean but won't be if they carry on being destroyed.

The Highland council have such a vast array of land mass it's created a host of issues most councils don't have to deal with. We also have a low population generally so finding staff can be difficult at the best of times.

It is a fine line for the authorities to walk too - I don't think there are simple solutions. Where I live, parking is a big problem and there are polarised views locally. On one hand there are those who oppose all developments such as additional carparks toilet blocks etc on the grounds that the roads are over full already so we don't want to encourage more traffic and that such developments would be detrimental to the natural beauty of the area. On the other hand there are those who say we need more tourists for the economy and should be doing everything possible to accomodate them.
My personal view is somewhere in between. People come despite the parking being poor and there being no public toilets in our valley and when it gets really busy they park in dangerous places and pee in the bushes. I think there's probably room for some careful, fairly low scale developments that would improve the situation at the peak times without turning the place into a concrete jungle. There is also possibly potential for temporary carparks at peak times. There was a big hoo-ha last year when one of the local farmers started charging people to park in one of his fields and he was eventually stopped and fined. Personally I didn't see a problem with this, as people were parking on the verges, in residential streets etc otherwise and I think it was less obtrusive to have them parked in the field. Nobody wants to lose the natural beauty of the area, but we do benefit economically from visitors and they are going to come anyway. Preventing tourism is neither desirable nor feasible, but better attempts to control the situation and balance the needs of visitors and local residents would probably help everyone. But it's definitely not easy. I do get frustrated with the behaviour of some visitors, but then I have to ask myself, if I arrived to do a particular walk having driven for hours and spent a lot of money getting here but discovered the carpark was full, would I really turn round and go back home or would I try to find a patch of grass I could squeeze my car onto? I suspect if we are completely honest with ourselves, a lot of us would try to find a way to do the activity we had planned. There is no excuse for some of the worst behaviour but I do think some concessions are needed to accomodate visitors.

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/132371306#/?channel=RES_BUY Offers over £300k (!!!) for 2 bedrooms on Harris. The worlds gone crazy.

Wiw, 8 pages! Its been really interesting to read about people's experiences.
Thanks for everyone's opinions and views, if visitors have a little understanding of the consequences of some of their actions then I'm sure we can all exist happily together and enjoy these beautiful places for years to come. We need tourism but we don't need inconsiderate entitled a-holes that think the highway code and country code doesn't apply to tham!

Yep, the second homes market has pushed the prices skye high on the islands and they often get bought up as holiday lets so no one lives in them half the year. Very sad

What's the rental market like in other tourist hot spots? Its pretty much non existent on Skye so businesses are really struggling to get staff as they can secure accomodation.
A lot of the hospitality workers are desperate to even get a static caravan yet all these houses lie empty and they still try to change holiday let prices for local workers looking for temp accomodation while they look for something more permanent.
So many restaurants and retail places have reduced hours as they can't get staff. Is it similar elsewhere?

Well Sturgeon's mother-in-law had until this week a spare, never used, luxury camper van. Maybe it could be offered up?

As for holiday homes, I know of an SNP MSP who bought one shortly after being elected. I don't mean a flat in Edinburgh but a house in a tourist village.

Where I used to take pride I now loathe commentators extolling the virtues of Scotland.

What, because of tourists?

Another Skye resident here. We moved here 18 months ago and I'm surprised by some of the comments about incomers not being welcome. I've not felt this at all, people have been very welcoming and friendly.

We're in a very quiet bit up beyond Dunvegan so the tourists are not a big issue in our immediate area. We get the odd campervan looking for somewhere to park up but not much else. The roads were busy when I drove into Portree yesterday though. Lots of people who don't seem to know how to drive on single track roads.

In other parts of the island the campervans are an absolute menace. I think numbers should be restricted somehow. I'm not far from Neist Point but I wouldn't even attempt to get there in summer due to the number of campervans. Personally I think there should be a toll on the bridge for campervans, with the money ringfenced to sort out the roads/potholes.