WHATEVER happens to the North Sea industry in the months and years ahead, the recent price shock has served one useful purpose – to act as a reminder that no city or region can afford to leave too many eggs in one basket.
Of course, economic diversification in Aberdeen and the North-east has been ritually spoken of for years – while, at the same time, dependence on oil and gas was continuing to grow.
It’s a problem of success.
Any region would give its right arm for an industry which is doing well, employs lots of people and pays good wages.
But while the North Sea has guaranteed Aberdeen’s hotel occupancy rates for decades, it has not necessarily been so good for the tourism industry.
It is a business city and a very successful one. But to some extent, this has been at the expense of its image and attractiveness as a tourism destination.
That helps to explain why the North-east under-performs as a tourism region within Scotland, particularly in attracting visitors from the rest of the UK.
Cities with familiar names should act as magnets for their region and if the city is associated with something else, then the tourism challenge is all the greater.
Lots of effort has gone into branding the North-east as Scotland’s Castle and Whisky Country, as a world-class centre for golf, as the favoured retreat of royalty and as an area of outstanding natural beauty and tranquility – all true and much more besides.
But there is now more need than ever for the region to maximise the value of these assets.
The hospitality industry is too often based on low wage levels, and in the North-east it has had to compete in Scotland’s tightest labour market – oil and gas again!
That makes it difficult to recruit and retain staff so the result, unless there is a conscious effort to resist it, tends to be a high turnover and insufficient attention to raising skill levels.
Yet in any longer term view, this is a crucial ingredient for any successful tourism region.
At its best, Scottish tourism is superb and there are plenty of North-east examples of that.
But it is still the ultimate curate’s egg – great in parts but sadly lacking in others.
The only way to achieve a reasonable degree of consistency is through investment and training.
Employment in the tourism sector should not be sold as a short-term, low-pay option.
Where the proper training structure exists, it equips young people with lifelong skills, marketable anywhere in the country or the world.
One certainty is that tourism will never stop growing as a global industry.
That is an even better bet than the future of oil and gas.