Government apathy could ‘wipe millions’ off tourism earnings
TravelMole guest comment by Graeme Barnett, British Travel Trade Fair event director
The British Travel Trade Fair opens its doors at the NEC in Birmingham tomorrow and one of our main aims this year it to urge the UK government to recognise the importance of tourism to the UK economy.
If they don’t, Government indifference to the UK’s travel and tourism industry could end up wiping billions of pounds off the country’s hard-fought overseas earnings.
More than 200 top international travel buyers, from 18 countries, will be flying in for BTTF, many of them from key emerging markets in central and eastern Europe and the Far East.
VisitBritain does an excellent job in marketing the UK around the world and yet ‘tourism’ is buried within the Department of Culture, Media & Sport and largely ignored by all but a few parliamentarians.
If VisitBritain’s aim of driving the industry’s annual earnings up to the £100 billion mark is to be achieved, MPs are going to have to buck up their ideas. Their indifference now could prove very costly in the future.
We have just seen official 2005 figures which show tourism earnings are at a record £14.3 billion, and the fact that these buyers are willing to come all this way is a ringing endorsement of Britain’s status as one of the world’s top tourism destinations.
Domestic tourism takes the earnings figure up to nearly £75 billion and the UK is currently ranked as the world’s sixth most-visited destination after France, Spain, the USA, China and Italy.
Last year, according to the Office of National Statistics, the number of international visitors to the UK soared 8% to almost 30 million. The World Tourism Organisation calculates the UK’s tourism growth rate is even higher, at 10% – a figure that is only beaten by China, where visitors arrivals were up 13%.
Although the number of American’s visiting Britain last year was up 3% to 4.2 million, the 8% growth in visitors from western Europe and an 18% leap in tourists from the rest of the world show that VisitBritain – and the British Travel Trade Fair – is right to look to new markets to sustain and build the nation’s tourist economy.
In marketing terms, tourism’s return on investment is exceptional, reaping nearly £50 in income for every £1 spent. It’s another example of why MP’s of all parties need to wake up to the fact tourism needs to be moved right up the government agenda.
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