Member Article

South Warwickshire's tourism chief calling for new government department

South Warwickshire’s tourism chief is calling for a paradigm shift in the government’s outlook on the tourism industry to help the sector fill mass vacancies and unlock growth in 2023.

Helen Peters, chief executive at Shakespeare’s England, is urging the government to launch a department that is dedicated to tourism – equivalent to DCMS, BEIS and DfT - rather than a standalone tourism minister – in order to strengthen lobbying efforts on behalf of the industry.

Her comments come at a time when recent figures from ABTA and UKinbound have underlined tourism’s significance to the UK economy, with international inbound tourism worth approximately £31bn a year to the nation, supporting 1.5 million jobs – yet there are still around 152,000 national vacancies in the hospitality industry, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Helen said: “A combination of the King’s upcoming Coronation and the weak British pound has created the perfect environment for our region’s businesses to capitalise on trade from international travellers wanting to sample a piece of history – but we need more support at government level.

“Businesses that survived Covid, and are now trying to thrive, need a long-term road map for growth in what is still a challenging economic climate.

“The best chance they have of achieving that is if we have a government department dedicated to tourism to support the dedicated work that is already being done by trade associations such as UKinbound to lobby for matters that can help to unlock growth.

“That way, there would be a greater government focus on addressing tourism issues, which will in turn help destinations and their businesses to capitalise on not only mainstream events, but moments in time when the eyes of the world will be on our country.

“The biggest issue threatening the long-term futures of many hospitality businesses is the difficulty in recruiting staff at supervisor level – where 50 per cent of interviewees just do not show up for an interview.

“Not being able to fill vacancies appears to be an emerging theme across various sectors, but unlike some industries, this isn’t a skills issue for the tourism and hospitality industry, but more to do with foreign workers who would have filled these roles no longer there to do so, and a lack of appetite from home-grown talent to take up the opportunities.

“A credible solution for hospitality and tourism specifically would be to re-look at visa restrictions to open up the talent pool available to businesses.

“This suggestion comes at a time when the government is trying to halt immigration numbers with no tourism voice around the table to stress how this could impact industries such as ours.

“If this recruitment crisis continues, then the alternative is that hospitality businesses will begin limiting their opening hours, or even shutting up shop altogether – which we are already starting to see in some places due to rising energy costs.

“Those likely to pump the most money into the UK economy are overseas visitors, yet worryingly, figures from Tourism Alliance show that over the past 12 months the UK has also lost 83 per cent of its overseas student visitors compared to pre-pandemic levels due to new passport rules for those of school age.

“Surely we need to be making it easier for under-18s to travel to Britain by re-introducing the use of ID cards for EU students if they are travelling with a passport-carrying adult.

“To handicap the industry even more, the removal of tax-free shopping feels like a missed opportunity that could further incentivise overseas travellers to visit the UK.

“These hurdles mean that marketing efforts to sell Britain to overseas visitors will undoubtedly need to increase.

“There is an overarching theme here in that there doesn’t feel like there is any evidence on a risk assessment by government on how their policies are affecting certain industries, including tourism.

“All that said, I want tourism businesses locally to know that there are reasons to be optimistic as we are starting to see visitor numbers creeping back towards pre-pandemic levels – which will be given a further boost for the King’s Coronation.

“The UK is revered across the globe with pent-up demand from markets such as the USA, Canada and India that I have seen first-hand from my recent travels; underlining that events like the King’s Coronation are golden springboards that tourism businesses can use for longer term growth - but as an industry we will not be able to fully capitalise on this in the long-term without a louder voice in number 10.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Matt Joyce .