ANGRY Argyll hoteliers besieged the tourist information centre in
Dunoon yesterday demanding entry into the inaugural meeting of their new
tourist board.
But officials of the recently merged Bute and Cowal Tourist Board
refused them entry, saying the meeting was open only to invited members.
As more than 50 members of the Dunoon and Bute hoteliers' associations
demanded to be heard, officials in the tourist office called in the
police. However, they were not required.
Hoteliers and guest house owners earlier attempted to join the new
tourist board but had their applications rejected.
''It is completely undemocratic that this meeting was allowed to
proceed with only two directors and selected invitees deciding the
future of our new tourist board and we are barred from taking part and
voting,'' said Mr Ken Richardson, owner of the Caledonian Hotel in
Dunoon.
During the past five months there has been open hostility and much
acrimony over the merger of the former Dunoon and Cowal and the Isle of
Bute tourist boards.
An inaugural meeting involving more than 180 members of the two former
tourist boards last month saw the appointment of 12 directors but, as no
limited company had been formed, they were subsequently deemed no longer
to hold office.
Yesterday's meeting in Dunoon was an attempt, claim hoteliers, to have
the new tourist board formed without involving the membership.
Mr Bill Taylor, chairman of the Dunoon and District Hotel and Guest
House Owners' Association, said: ''Yesterday's meeting was a complete
farce and despite 36 hoteliers putting forward their membership
applications we were refused any part of the meeting.
''The only way we'll be satisfied is if the two current interim
directors, Douglas Campbell and Alan Frater, resign and take no further
part in the proceedings. We have no faith whatsoever in their ability to
run this company. They have bungled the entire affair.''
Dunoon Councillor Bob McLeary, who was one of six Argyll and Bute
district councillors who attended the meeting as observers, said: ''The
district councillors agreed that the tourist board should be more open
and democratic and open to every member. All of us were against the way
things were being handled up till now.''
Mr Ray Dalton, a Bute hotelier who had received an invitation to the
tourist board meeting, said afterwards: ''As the directors could not get
the necessary 95% majority to agree to hold an inaugural meeting of
those present, the board will now have to call a further meeting,
hopefully involving the entire membership. Everyone who wants to become
members of this new tourist board should be allowed to do so.''
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