All party backing for British Tourism Week
The first British Tourism Week planned for next March has won cross-party political support.
The week of events on March 12-18 includes the British Travel Trade Fair and UKinbound’s 30th anniversary convention, as previously reported by TravelMole.
Minister responsible for tourism Shaun Woodward, Conservative shadow culture media and sport secretary Hugo Swire and his Liberal Democrat counterpart Don Foster have voiced their backing for the initiative.
Woodward said: “British Tourism Week is a great initiative and we will work with the organising committee to help ensure we can achieve the goals of improving competitiveness and raising quality standards.”
But the goverment has come under attack for “ignoring” tourism following a letter from Prime Minister Tony Blair to culture secretary Tessa Jowell outlining seven priorities for the department, excluding tourism.
The criticism came from the Tourism Alliance, whose chairman Brigid Simmonds said: “Tourism is one of thre largest industries in the UK, one of our biggest export earners and provides the Exchequer with some £12 billion per annum and yet this government continues to ignore it.
“In fact there has been no increase in government funding for international marketing since 1997 even though DCMS’s budget has increased by nearly 50% in the last five years alone.”
She was speaking in the wake of a Wolrd Travel & Tourism Council report which warned that the UK would see its share of global tourism fall by more than 20% over the next decade.
Simmonds added: “With winning the 2012 Olympics, we have the opportunity to ensure that the WTTC forecast is proved wrong. However, that will only happen if the government realises that it cannot simply ignore the inadequate state of marketing expenditure.
“It is worth noting that while Australia is spending £72 million on just the ‘Where the bloody hell are you’ campaign, our government is spending just £35.5 million in total across 36 overseas markets.”
Report by Phil Davies
Phil Davies
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