Guest Editor: Ufi Ibrahim

This weeks Guest Editor is Ufi Ibrahim, Chief Executive of the British Hospitality Association.

Is government taking a more enlightened approach to the tourism and hospitality industry?

In June, it pledged £50m to VisitBritain to match fund a £100m promotional campaign which aims to increase visitor numbers to Britain by 4m, boost visitor spend by £2bn and create 50,000 new tourism jobs by 2015.

More recently it allocated £29m in additional funds for VisitBritain to develop new markets.

And in November, the Regional Growth Fund allocated £19.7m to VisitEngland to create a new three-year project entitled, ‘Growing Tourism Locally’, a key part of which will be a national campaign aimed at inspiring Britons to take more short breaks and holidays at home and, in doing so, grow jobs in the tourism sector.

These are positive and welcome signs that the government is taking the needs of the hospitality and tourism industry seriously. But this is not all good news.

We must set this new funding against reduced spending on tourism by the now defunct RDAs. In 2009/10 this amounted to £52m and £37.4 in 2010/11. Indeed, in the five years to 2011, total RDA spending on tourism activities was £275m. In 2011/2012 it will be zero because all the RDAs will be wound down.

Tourism has certainly lost out here because government spending on Local Enterprise Partnerships, (which are replacing RDAs) will be far less and the existence of many local tourism organizations is threatened because of lack of funding.

And we should also bear in mind that early in 2011, VisitBritain cut 30 per cent of its staff and closed offices in 13 countries as it responded to a four-year fall of 34 per cent in its annual government grant - to just over £21m in 2014-15. This reduction caused considerable distress as the organization trimmed its global reach – just at a time when international competition is gathering strength once again.

The irony is that VisitBritain, having slimmed down and made staff redundant, now finds itself recruiting again to re-establish its presence in the international tourism market. That £29m new money allocated to VisitBritain will go some way to making up the shortfall created by the cut-back only six months ago. Such are the vagaries of government.

The industry’s concerns have evidently had an impact, and the government has clearly listened. That is all to the good. But these stop and start policies are very disruptive to any organisation; they are also damaging to morale and represent a huge waste of limited resources. This is at a time when Britain needs to fight its corner in all its key source markets.

Does this new funding signify a permanent change of heart towards the government’s tourism priorities? We must hope so. .