The world must be very underwhelmed when it meets Scotland, despite the view

The Old Town skyline must take the breath away for any first-time tourist in Edinburgh, says Vladimir McTavish

Depending on how you arrive in Auld Reekie, your first impression of the city may be one of wonder and amazement. Or of wondering why you chose to come here in the first place. Take the train up the east coast, and you are rewarded with spectacular views all the way north from Newcastle. Arriving at Waverley, as if the Victorian splendour of the station itself were not enough of an Instagram moment, you are then treated to one of the most iconic cityscapes in Europe. The Old Town skyline, the castle, the Scott Monument all in one vista must take the breath away for any first-time tourist. Not such a good impression if you arrive by air, particularly if you are coming from overseas.

OK, the view of the bridges as you approach over the Forth is pretty spectacular. However, I’m not sure it’s enough to compensate for the shoddy customer experience when you land at Edinburgh Airport from abroad. International travellers must be very confused. They’d thought they were visiting a major European tourist destination, but it appears they’ve taken a journey back in time to Albania in the 1970s.

You trail up and down stairs through a series of bolted-together cabins, which have not even been decorated with any kind of welcome. They look like they could have been bought secondhand off the old CalMac ferry terminal in Ardrossan. The immigration hall is barely fit for purpose. On Wednesday lunchtime, I noted eight international flights on the arrivals board within a 30-minute window. Yet there are only ten automatic passport gates. That meant there was an enormous queue of three plane-loads of passengers snaking around the freezing cold shed. Quite simply, that is a not good enough welcome to our foreign guests. Once through immigration, you proceed to the baggage hall which doesn’t even have a ceiling. We’re told this is “where Scotland meets the world”. I reckon the world must be distinctly underwhelmed when it first meets Scotland.