A Scottish guidebook has confirmed it will not be including Donald Trump’s Turnberry hotel in the next edition due to the president’s “divisive and dangerous” politics.
Scotland the Best has featured the five-star every year since it was first published in 1993, including each edition since the resort was bought by the former Apprentice star in 2014.
However, the book’s author, Pete Irvine, has said he will not be putting the South Ayrshire-based Trump Turnberry in the next issue, published March 2019.
“I’m taking it out of the next edition,” Mr Irvine told The Scotsman. “I still think it’s a great hotel, a flagship for Scotland and for golf, but I can’t champion or even recommend a place for which I have so many reservations.”
Irvine, who is also founding director of Unique Events, which has created, produced and managed Edinburgh’s Hogmanay since its inception, added: “Like so many of the little people everywhere, I watch with increasing repulsion as [president Trump’s] half-baked policies and contradictory pronouncements make the world a more divisive and dangerous place.
“He has used the office of presidency in the shameless commercial advancement of his hotel business.”
He added that, while he understood some locals in Aberdeenshire (the location of Trump’s other Scottish property) and South Ayrshire might be grateful for the profile boost the president has given the area, “I don’t feel that overall either of his two properties here are good for Scotland.”
Trump’s other hotel in Scotland is Trump Aberdeen which, like Trump Turnberry, features an 18-hole golf course.
The US president stayed at his Turnberry property for two days in July 2018 as part of his first official visit to the UK, along with his wife Melania, his son Eric, his White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders, and White House chief of staff John Kelly.
The US government picked up the bill for the private visit to the tune of £52,000.
The Turnberry has been heavily loss-making since Trump purchased it four years ago, running up an operating deficit of £17.6m in 2017.
However, the resort was crowned Scottish hotel of the year at the Scottish Hotel Awards in April. “I fully respect Pete’s right to decide what is included in Scotland the Best, but my view is we should not be politicising Scottish tourism,” said trade body UK Hospitality’s Willie Macleod.
