Business Information

Updated 6th July

This page will be regularly updated with the latest information for businesses in West Lothian. Do keep checking back to find out more. *NEW* Checklists and sector information has been released today. Find out more by visiting "Re-opening guidance and checklists" section. 

Business Webinar

A Webinar, hosted with Visit Scotland, will take place for all tourism businesses in West Lothian on Friday 10th July. A booking link will follow shortly.

Marketing West Lothian

Visit West Lothian are working with partner organisations to develop a marketing plan for West Lothian locally, and to feed in to plans at a national level. For this, over the coming weeks we will be requesting various bits of information from businesses. This information will be shared with Visit Scotland so you are not repeatedly asked for information by multiple organisations.

Some of this will be simple, such as whether toilets are open, but it is crucial for us to have this up-to-date information to effectively begin promoting the area again in a safe way. You can submit this below:

This information will also be used to update listings on the Visit West Lothian website, similar in style to what is in place for the Golf Courses (example: Harburn Golf Club). Research suggests providing this information will be crucial to visitors deciding where to go, above factors such as the price of entry, so it is important that this is easily available. Businesses with a website login will be able to update this themselves through logging in to their listing page, otherwise we will use responses to the survey to complete this. 

Example COVID-19 Information page

Re-opening guidance and checklists

Visit Scotland have produced two checklists, one for small businesses and a second for medium / large to work through.

• Small Business checklist
• Medium / Large business checklist

Guidance for individual sectors has been produced to help you understand what you need to prepare for, and do, to re-open.

• Accommodation
• Self Catering
• Campsites, holiday parks & touring parks
• Food and Drink
  • Food Standards Scotland
  • UK Hospitality
• Visitor Attractions
  • Association of Scottish Visitor Attractions
  • UK Hospitality
• Wild Scotland
• Outdoor access and national parks
• Transport operators
• Retail

Finance

A variety of financial support packages are still available, such as the newly launched "Bed and Breakfast" grant. These are detailed below:

• Bed and Breakfast Grant - by West Lothian Council
• Newly Self-Employed Hardship Fund - by West Lothian Council
• Third Sector Resilience Fund - by West Lothian Council
• Coronavirus Business Support Fund and Business Rates Relief - by West Lothian Council

Business Support

Visit West Lothian will be hosting an interactive, West Lothian specific webinar in the coming weeks with industry experts where you can ask questions about any aspects of re-opening at a local level. We also plan on producing a few handy video guides to work through certain areas. More details will be on this page soon. 

Visit Scotland have produced a number of tourism webinars - available to view here. 

Previous Benchmark Emails

Throughout the pandemic Visit West Lothian have produced a number of online newsletters with the latest information. You can view there here:

• B&B Fund Now Live! https://clt1001902.bmeurl.co/A7D672D - 16th June
• STA: 1 metre?, STERG Latest & New B&B Fund https://clt1001902.bmeurl.co/A710056 - 4th June

• Latest Updates and & Business Survey https://clt1001902.bmeurl.co/A628C75 - 21 May

• Further grants for Scottish Tourism Businesses announced today https://clt1001902.bmeurl.co/A4C8DEC - 30th April
• BREAKING: Newly Self Employed Hardship Fund goes live https://clt1001902.bmeurl.co/A4C385F - 30th April