BiGGAR Economics, a Scottish consultancy company, has calculated that short-term lets (STLs) contribute nearly £1bn gross value added (GVA) to the Scottish economy while supporting approximately 30,000 jobs. By accommodating visitors, STLs generate economic activity across Scotland, with the local impacts exceeding residential use, supporting an additional £32,400 GVA per property.
According to their report , Economic Impact of Short Term Lets in Scotland, Orkney’s short-term let sector, despite regulatory challenges, is performing well with one of the largest economic impacts in the country – and bigger than Glasgow – generating £21m GVA per annum and supporting 717 jobs in the local area.
Guests staying in self-catering accommodation, termed ‘secondary lets’ in Scottish STL legislation, also spend more than the average visitor to Orkney, with knock-on gains for related tourist and hospitality businesses. The report calculates that the spend per night in Orkney per visitor in short term lets is £24.85. Alongside this economic boost, the researchers also highlight that self-catering accounts for less than 1% of the country’s total housing stock.
Fiona Campbell, CEO of the Association of Scotland’s Self-Caterers, said:
“This is yet more compelling evidence that short-term lets aren’t the main contributor of the housing crisis but are instead turbocharging local economies, including in our island communities. We can see this across Orkney where STLs generate £21m per annum and support hundreds of local jobs.
“However, this windfall is at risk from heavy-handed regulation. Orkney Council should take heed of the report’s findings when considering their approach to planning policies and control areas to ensure the relatively small number of valuable short-term lets are protected.
“For policymakers, the message couldn’t be clearer: you can’t solve a housing crisis by producing a crisis in Scottish tourism by decimating local businesses that underpin local economies. Attention must shift to the real causes of the housing crisis.”
Proportion of Scottish GVA and Jobs Impacts by Local Authority, 2023
Graeme Blackett, Director of BiGGAR Economics, said:
“This report shows that secondary lets make an important contribution to Scottish tourism and economy overall, supporting almost 30,000 Scottish jobs. Our research also concluded that it was clear that secondary lets are not a driver of the wider Scottish housing market. If short-term let regulations leads to a reduction in the supply of secondary lets, that will have a negative impact on the tourism economy, without delivering any solutions to Scotland’s wider housing challenges.”
According to BiGGAR economics this challenges the narrative that STLs are fuelling Scotland’s housing crisis, with self-catering at only 0.8% of the country’s housing stock, too low a proportion to have a meaningful impact on local housing markets. Moreover, according to the report, in every local authority area including Orkney, economically inactive empty homes account for a larger proportion of total dwellings than from secondary lets.
The share of dwellings accounted for by Secondary Lets varies across parts of the country, with rural areas such as Na-Eileanan Siar, Orkney, Shetland, Highland and Argyll and Bute, exhibiting greater proportions. In these cases, the proportion that are Secondary Lets is less than the proportion that are second homes and/or vacant dwellings. Economic Impact of Short Term Lets, BiGGAR Economics
The full report can be downloaded here:
Fiona Grahame
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