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Travel and tourism North East’s strongest sector of 2017 so far, says report

The latest national business stability tables are showing the North East’s travel and tourism sector to be outperforming most its regional UK counterparts.

According to the latest research by insolvency and restructuring trade body R3, the regional tourism operator sector was ranked only behind Northern Ireland out of 12 UK regions in terms of the proportion of firms with a heightened risk of entering insolvency in the next year.

The region’s pub and restaurant industries are also continuing to do well against their regional rivals, with the former ranked as the most stable in the ten English regions, and the latter listed only behind Scotland.

Overall, regional businesses in six of the 11 key industries that R3 monitors have been found to have a lower proportion of firms with a heightened risk of entering insolvency in the next year than the national average, with the North East’s technology, transport, and professional services businesses all outperforming the average in their respective sectors.

The North East construction sector is once again the least stable of any of the 12 regions across the UK, while the region’s retail, manufacturing, agriculture, and hotel sectors are all fairing worse than their respective national averages.

Across all 11 industries that R3 monitors, a quarter (25%) of all North East businesses have a heightened risk of entering insolvency in the next year, which is the same as the overall national average.

R3’s insolvency risk tracker is compiled using Bureau van Dijk’s ‘Fame’ database and measures companies’ balances sheets, director track records and other information to work out their likelihood of survival over the next 12 months.

Neil Harrold, chair of R3 in the North East and a partner with Hay & Kilner Solicitors, said: “The depths of winter always see holiday companies and resorts maximising their marketing efforts to tempt customers to book as many holidays in the sun as possible, and this has translated into a strong start to 2017 for the North East tour operators and travel agencies that fulfil these bookings for them.

“The overall picture for the North East remains very mixed, with our pub and restaurant sectors maintaining the momentum they built in the run-up to Christmas and the professional services sector recording gains in the first part of the year, but the construction, manufacturing and retail sectors all continue to have their struggles.

“The best way for any business to recover from financial difficulties is to take proactive steps to address them as soon as they become apparent, so their management teams can access and benefit from the widest range of possible solutions to the issues they’re facing.”

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