Diary of a Shopkeeper, 31st January
Ice breakers.
So January ends with a fine spell of dry, still weather. But beuy is it cold. It’s rare to see the lochs as frozen as they have been this past week.
Today I watched a family of three swans swim several hundred metres through Stenness Loch. Except they weren’t doing the usual graceful swan glide. With the water frozen two centimetres thick, the lead swan had to repeatedly lift itself up and crash down on the ice, breaking the frozen surface so it could move forwards. Its companions then paddled along the channel it had cleared.
The ‘crunch-splash, crunch-splash’ carried clear through the still air as we walked by the lochside, until eventually the swans reached the banks.
Many Orkney businesses will have felt as chilled as those swans’ bellies this week, when the tourism organisation Visit Britain released its latest ‘Sentiment Tracker’.
The idea of sentiments being tracked across the country could be slightly comical:
‘Quick Jimmy, there’s someone laughing with joy in Liverpool: get it in the spreadsheet!’
‘Hold on Jane, reports are coming in of folk feeling a bit grumpy in Grangemouth…’
In reality, the Sentiment Tracker is based on extensive customer research involving thousands of people from across the UK. Its goal is to find whether the population is thinking positively about travelling and planning holidays, the extent to which they are upbeat or apprehensive, and which parts of the country they would like to visit when possible.
The latest results, based on surveys carried out mid-month, are worrying for anyone who makes some or all of their living from tourism.
56% of the population think ‘the worst is still to come.’
17% think they might be able to take an overnight trip between now and June.
People are more optimistic about the summer, but still, only 26% believe they will be able to take a holiday before September.
For all respondents – who, remember, come from all across the UK – south-west England is by far the most popular destination, though Scotland is in second place, with a tenth of would-be holidaymakers having it at the top of their list.
Orkney isn’t named, and we can only hope that some of the one tenth of one quarter of the population dreaming of an overnight stay in Scotland make it this far.
When, of course, it is safe to do so.
Last April, in the fourth of these diaries (this is the 45th), I took stock of the likelihood of there being little or no tourism over the summer. At that point I had enough to worry about without looking ahead to 2021: if you’d asked me, I’d probably have assumed we’d be more or less back to normal by now. But it’s clear that we’re a long way off normal.
What with the big second wave breaking in November, the new Covid variants sweeping the world, and the knowledge that, though the vaccine is rolling out, it will be months before the majority of the population have had their jag, it will likely be late summer before freedom of movement returns.
What does late summer signal? The end of the tourist season.
So it could be that after winter 2019/2020, then summer 2020 (which was like a winter for most businesses), then winter 2020/2021, we will see another economic winter this May to September. Before, of course, heading into the real winter 2021/2022. Five winters!
Some folk I’ve discussed this with, including other shopkeepers and business owners, think I’m being too pessimistic. They point out that if travel within the UK is going to be hard, then travel abroad will be almost impossible. So we may see a boom in staycations, with folk from across the firth – whether ten miles south or five hundred – flocking to experiences Orkney’s charms as soon as it is safe for them, and safe for us.
I hope they’re right, but, as the philosopher says, I hae ma doots.
For me positivity comes, not from thinking the tourist cavalry is going to come riding over the southern horizon to rescue us. Rather, grounds for optimism lie much closer to home. Orkney folk have proven staunch supporters of local businesses over the past ten months; food shops in particular have been very busy. Cafes and restaurants that have managed to stay open are well-frequented. I have no doubt that, when pubs and licensed eateries are allowed to reopen, they will be immediately popular. We would all like a good night out – or any night out!
You’d have to be clean gyte to think that 22,000 Orcadians could spend enough to make up for the £76 million of tourist income the county received in 2019. But with travel frozen solid, local businesses will, more than ever, be depending on local trade.
It’s not a one-way street: businesses will have to work hard to appeal to local folk more than ever before. For some, who already have a strong local customer base, it won’t be too much of a challenge. For others, who have oriented themselves to the booming tourist market of recent years, it will require reinvention: a lot of imagination and a lot of hard work.
But we’ve no choice. If the graceful swans of Stenness can make their way through an icy loch I’m sure Orkney businesses can break through the frozen economy, one ‘crunch-splash’ at a time.
This diary appeared in The Orcadian on 4th February. Other diaries continue to appear weekly. I am posting them in this blog a few days after each newspaper appearance, with added illustrations., and occasional small corrections or additions.