Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme in Scotland: statistics - February 2025

Welcome accommodation

There is a range of welcome accommodation across Scotland, including hotels, apartments, aparthotels and, previously, cabins onboard M/S Victoria and M/S Ambition. Should a displaced person from Ukraine require welcome accommodation, it is, in the majority of cases, allocated via the core welcome hub in Edinburgh. When in welcome accommodation, matching discussions will take place to secure an offer of matched accommodation. The data provided in this publication are drawn from the administrative data of the welcome accommodation team within the Scottish Government and management information provided by Corporate Travel Management our accommodation and travel contractor.

On 27 January 2025, there were around 350 welcome accommodation rooms occupied by displaced people from Ukraine. This is almost a 25% reduction from around 465 rooms occupied on 28 October 2024 as reported in our previous publication and a decrease of just over 90% from the peak of 3,810 rooms and cabins on 7 November 2022 (figure 1).

The number of rooms occupied by displaced people from Ukraine in welcome accommodation, have been on an overall decreasing trend since November 2022 with some fluctuation.

Figure 1: Total number of occupied rooms and cabins used as welcome accommodation for displaced people from Ukraine in Scotland. Data between 15 August 2022 and 27 January 2025.

The total booked welcome accommodation includes unoccupied rooms (including cabins until the disembarkation of M/S Victoria), kept available for displaced people from Ukraine who may require it. Additionally, some unoccupied rooms are unavailable for occupancy for reasons including overnight contingency, pending closure, and consolidation of other welcome accommodation.

On 27 January 2025, there were around 395 welcome accommodation rooms booked across Scotland, with around 45 of these rooms unoccupied, a decrease from the 75 unoccupied rooms on 28 October 2024 reported in our previous publication.  Occupancy rates vary over time as rooms identified for closure cannot be backfilled.  The number of unoccupied rooms has been on an overall downward trend since the disembarkation of M/S Victoria in July 2023.

At the end of September 2024, some welcome accommodation properties were consolidated. This affected the booked rooms, occupancy totals and guest numbers on 30 September 2024, as new rooms opened to facilitate guests moving between properties and vacated rooms were not assigned new occupants. Additionally, this may have led to guest numbers being double counted on 30 September, and as such a sizeable decrease on 7 October.

There were peaks in the number of unoccupied rooms during disembarkations of M/S Ambition (1,265 unoccupied rooms) in March 2023 and M/S Victoria (1,210 unoccupied rooms) in July 2023 (figure 2). This was because, as part of an orderly disembarkation process, vacated cabins were not assigned new occupants during disembarkation and could not be closed individually. There were followed by steep decreases in unoccupied welcome accommodation, of 505 rooms in March 2023 and 760 in July 2023, due to closures of M/S Ambition and M/S Victoria (figure 2).

Figure 2: Total number of unoccupied rooms and cabins used as welcome accommodation for displaced people from Ukraine in Scotland. Data between 15 August 2022 and 27 January 2025.

The Scottish Government published an ad-hoc release of management information data on the Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme in Scotland outcomes of the M/S Ambition and the M/S Victoria disembarkations in September 2023.

Please see methodology section for additional notes.