Donald Trump fears Scotland will lose out to Ireland on tourism over wind turbines

The Donald laughed at in Scottish parliament over claims to be tourist expert

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Donald Trump was laughed at in the Scottish parliament when he claimed he was a “world class tourist expert”. Trump is furious about the proposed wind turbines Scotland is planning on installing off the coast of Trump’s new golf resort, eight miles north of Aberdeen. Trump claims that with the installation of the turbines, Scotland will quickly lose out on the tourism trade to nearby Ireland.

Bloomberg BusinessWeek reports on Trump’s conflict with Scotland’s plan to go green by 2020. Upon being informed about the proposed installation of the 11 wind turbines off the coast of his new $1.2 billion golf resort, Trump went directly to an inquiry into renewable energy at Scotland’s Parliament to lodge his complaints.

"Scotland, if you pursue this policy of these monstrous turbines, Scotland will go broke," Trump said before Parliament. "They are ugly, they are noisy and they are dangerous. If Scotland does this, Scotland will be in serious trouble and will lose tourism to places like Ireland, and they are laughing at us."

When challenged to produce hard evidence about his claims on the negative impact of turbines, Trump said: "I am the evidence, I am a world class expert in tourism,” which was met by bursts of laughter.

Trump then went on to claim that he was given verbal confirmation from Scottish leader Alex Salmond and his predecessor Jack McConnell that wind farm would not be built off the coast of his resort.

"They wanted my money," Trump said. "I was lured into buying the site, after I had spent my money they came and announced the plan. At the time I bought the land I felt confident the wind farm was not going to happen."

Trump reportedly paid $7.6 million for the land in 2006 which is now being developed as his golf resort. Local community members were angry when he bulldozed sand dunes, home to rare birds, at the site to create fairways in 2009 and 2010.

In contradiction to Trump’s argument that the turbines will be detrimental to Scottish tourism, Scotland’s tourism agency found that a staggering 83 percent of UK visitors would not be turned off by turbines.

VisitScotland chief Malcolm Roughead said, "We are both reassured and encouraged by the findings of our survey which suggest that, at the current time, the overwhelming majority of consumers do not feel wind farms spoil the look of the countryside.”

Trump’s mother was Scottish and she spoke Scots Gaelic.

Mary Anne MacLeod, was born on the Island of Lewis, off the west coast of Scotland.

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