By Sharon Wilson
The First Minister today delivered the news that much of the hospitality trade has been waiting for.
As we move towards phrase 3 and out of Lockdown, restaurants and pubs can relax 2 metre social distancing down to 1 metre subject to other mitigating measures.
Marc Crothall, Chief Executive of the Scottish Tourism Alliance said;
“The First Minister’s announcement of the relaxation of the 2 metre physical distancing rule to 1 metre for certain sectors with mitigations is the news that the industry has been eagerly anticipating. The recent research that the STA undertook revealed that the majority of businesses in the tourism sector would be economically unsustainable if the 2 metre physical distancing rule remained; today’s news will mean that many hundreds of businesses that had not planned to reopen may now reconsider and plan to do so."
Russell Imrie who runs The Bruntsfield Hotel in Edinburgh spoke to Radio Scotland and said that he was encouraged to be able to move forward and looked forward to learning more detail about what the mitigation measures were.
Marc Crothill further commented in a press statement that:
"It is immensely reassuring that more than 2000 tourism businesses have already gone through the recommended UK-wide Covid-19 ‘Good to Go’ accreditation and many more will be doing the same before reopening from the 15th July "
Hawksmoor, Dishoom, The White Horse and Vittoria restaurants have all announced their re-openings.