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bandbnews.co.uk | 21 The Value of Statistics
The Tourism Alliance has been publishing UK Tourism Statistics for four years now, charting the growth of the UK tourism industry and highlighting the role that the industry has played in the rebuilding of the UK economy since the recession.
The publication of this document has proved a vital tool in significantly increasing awareness and understanding across Government and in Parliament of the size and value of the tourism industry and facilitating a greater understanding of the benefits of the industry to national, regional and local economies.
This greater understanding of the tourism industry has manifest itself in a number of ways. In the 2010 Westminster General Election, not a single political party mentioned tourism in its manifesto. However, after a campaign lead by members of the Tourism Alliance using the data in this publication, and meeting with party leaders and tourism spokespeople of every UK party, our advocacy ensured that tourism was included in every manifesto at the 2015 General Election. Our advocacy has to be confident, well-argued and well-evidenced because our industry’s importance requires nothing less.
This new-found understanding of tourism has subsequently resulted in the Government announcing a range of initiatives that will benefit tourism businesses. While the Government’s new tourism strategy, the Five Point Plan for Tourism, was notable for being the first strategy published by the new Government, what was more significant was that the Government formed a new Inter-Ministerial Group to oversee the implementation of the strategy and help remove some of the roadblocks that are the responsibility of other Government Departments. This is something that the Tourism Alliance has lobbied for over many years and it is a testament to the greater understanding of tourism across Government that Ministers from other Departments are willing to commit their time to be on this Group.
It should be readily acknowledged that the Government’s comprehensive spending review settlement for tourism, and its constituent parts, was extremely good and we warmly welcome the establishment of the Discover England Fund and the enhanced budget for the GREAT campaign. This, combined with no cuts to the VisitBritain and VisitEngland core budgets of the British Tourist Authority, means that there are significant opportunities to further grow the UK tourism economy. Some of these initiatives were part of the recommendations of the Commons’ Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee’s report into tourism, published just prior to the 2015 general election. We remain entirely supportive of all of the Committee’s recommendations on tourism, including those relating to the roles, governance and competences of public agencies.
Even with this increased funding and greater joined-up Government support, there is much to be done. While the UK retained its position as the 5th most competitive tourism destination in the world in the World Economic Forum’s latest tourism competitiveness survey, it fell from 138th to 140th out of 141 countries in terms of price competitiveness due to visitors facing much higher levels of taxation compared to almost every other country. And while visa provision has improved there are still opportunities to further enhance our offer. On the domestic side, deregulation remains a big issue for businesses, while there is an urgent need to reverse the fragmentation of regional and local tourism support structures.
And addressing these issue will require policies built on a solid statistical base.
Bernard Donoghue Chairman, Tourism Alliance
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