Bookster, SuperControl, TravelNest, Unbagged, and FreeToBook co-signed a letter sent on 21 March expressing their “grave concerns” over the impact of STL regulatory legislation. 

The companies offer holiday rental marketing, luggage-storage platforms, and booking engines for the tourism industry and claim that their existence relies on a thriving STL sector in Scotland, and would not have been founded without it.

“We request that an urgent review is carried out of the measures that will significantly affect thousands of small businesses,” said Robin Morris, managing director at bookster in the letter.

The startups are part of a large number of tertiary services that STLs support. They employ skilled developers and other tech talent to build their products and nurture the Scottish startup culture. 

The reaction is in response to a new licensing scheme for short term lets that came into effect in October. The rules set out by the new system will become fully operational by the end of the month. However, some operators may have the deadline extended to September to support them during the cost of living crisis. 

The STL legislation aimed to control the amount of short term lets popping up to make more real-estate and housing available for residents.

The five Scottish tech firms believe the legislation will have knock-on effects that could greatly impact a multitude of industries along with the tourism sector of Scotland. For example, 77.5% of business owners found that the STL legislation was a significant or medium threat to their business according to a report from the Moffat Centre.

The report also heard complaints from respondents, saying that the regulations would create uncertainty for their future operations, and that it serves no clear purpose. The report also accused the legislation as a “one-size fits all” approach and does not address the nuances between smaller towns and bigger cities. 

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Julia Amour, director of festivals Edinburgh estimated that a third of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival programme could be lost in 2024 due to not being able to find suitable accommodation under the new legislation, she said in a Scottish Parliament evidence session last month. They added that legislation like this could negatively affect the visitor economy, which employs 44,000 people in Edinburgh alone. 

Despite push-back from the tourism and travel tech industry, the City of Edinburgh Council is firmly behind the licensing scheme and said they plan to pressure the Scottish Government to  “strengthen the licensing scheme to allow councils to limit the number of licences.”