I will come back on some of those points.
For the past six to nine months, I have been going round the country talking to groups from the south to the north. On Monday, I was up in Shetland. The one topic that comes up at every group is digital connectivity, and it comes up more in relation to the competitiveness framework. There are five elements to that: the hardware; the capacity; the capability; the ability to convert business that is generated, which I think is the point that Marc Crothall was making; and using digital in communications.
As far as the hardware is concerned, broadband roll-out is happening. That is being managed by Highlands and Islands Enterprise on behalf of everybody, but we really need it to be in place before we can address the mobile issue, which is absolutely fundamental, because more and more people are using mobile. Part of the problem is that we are building on a legacy system. We are not in the position that some of the eastern European countries such as Estonia were in, whereby they did not have the lines in place, so they just went straight to mobile. We also see that in India, which is probably one of the most advanced mobile business-enabled countries in the world. We are dealing with that and getting that in place.
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Capacity is not just about downloading, but about being able to upload, and businesses have said that it is the upload capacity that they are concerned about.
Capability is very much about skills. A lot of the programmes out there are aimed at what I would call the digitally included, where the issue is about enhancing skills. However, what is coming through more and more is that a vast number of people out there are digitally excluded. We need to look at how we address that and how we make those businesses competitive.
You asked whether there were any statistics. Nine thousand businesses are listed on visitscotland.com, but only 30 per cent of them are able to transact online. That means that something like 6,300 businesses are missing out on that opportunity. As Marc Crothall said, people who come online want to book online; it is as simple as that. After all, 64 per cent of all bookings globally are made online.
There is a huge opportunity, but also a challenge, because we have to make sure that the programmes in place are bespoke and allow people to overcome some of the technical issues. There is also a certain fear factor. I guess that the analogy is that if you are an absolute beginner sitting next to a geek, you are going to feel slightly intimidated. Likewise, a geek sitting next to a beginner is not going to advance their own skills in the way that they would want to. A lot of good activity is going on, but a lot of work needs to be done to make sure that the activity that is being generated out there is being focused on the right areas.
There is also the issue of communications, how you use search engine optimisation, maximise listings, use dynamic content and so on, but, with regard to capability, that is slightly more esoteric and slightly further down the line.