UK tourism boom challenges trade

Comment by Jeremy Skidmore (www.jeremyskidmore.com)

During the 1990s and early part of this century, UK tourism was in steep decline as everyone jetted off on package holidays and a new invention called no-frills flights.

Our seaside resorts got exactly what they deserved. Why stay here for dreadful weather and overpriced hotels that view ‘customer service’ as a gimmick from America, when you can go abroad for the opposite?

Strangely though, the UK has turned it around. London, we are told, is not only the dirtiest, but also the trendiest, city in the world.

Various organisations are predicting record numbers visiting our resorts this year. Meanwhile, Hoseasons, which sells boating holidays, lodges and villas in the UK, among other things, is on course for a 20 per cent rise in sales.

How can this be? Some are putting it down to a reaction against flying and all the chaos you can expect at security and immigration. Others are saying that people are thinking more about the environmental impact of flying and choosing other holidays.

I don’t buy that. Have you been to Heathrow or Gatwick recently? They’re not exactly quiet. And the stats show that we are taking ever more flights, despite the green lobby.

We are taking more holidays, though, and some of them are in the UK. The work/life balance now means that people feel stressed out if they don’t get away at least every couple of months and UK destinations are benefitting.

People holiday in the UK partly because of the hot weather which, according to some, has ironically been caused by global warming from our continued desire to fly everywhere.

But also, UK resorts and holiday centres have re-invented themselves and had millions invested in them. Newquay is a cool surfers’ paradise, Brighton is trendy and holiday centres are nothing like the hideous monstrosities of my childhood.

I’m going to Bournemouth over the bank holiday and staying in a lovely bed and breakfast; the thought of doing such a thing would have been laughable a decade ago.

UK tourism may just continue to thrive if we can control the disgusting lack of respect that so many of our citizens seem to have for their surroundings. My pet hate is litter louts and if I ruled the country for a day, the first thing I would do is publicly flog anyone deliberately throwing rubbish on the floor.

Anyway, all this tourism growth may be good news, but it presents challenges for the industry.

We’ve all heard a million times about how bad the trade is at selling the UK and, in agents’ defence, how many people find it easy to book direct. But with the UK becoming trendy among our youth, there are new opportunities to sell our resorts and they need to be seized.

Also, although holidaymakers are going to UK destinations, they are doing it for a short time. The real growth is in short breaks and these days less people head for the beach for a fortnight.

People are also booking very late. In Easter week, they’ll see that the sun is due to shine over the holiday and head for the coast.

Many property owners are one-man bands who want to sell from Saturday to Saturday, months in advance. They haven’t got the staff or inclination to clean up and change over in midweek after a family has stayed from a Monday to Thursday.

The UK tourism boom sounds great but there are many issues bubbling below the surface. I’d be interested in your views on the way forward for selling this great nation of ours.