Tourism Minister unveils plan for future of industry

Last Updated: 14 Mar 2011

John Penrose, the Tourism Minister, recently unveiled his plan for the future of the tourism industry in the UK. His report recognises once again the importance of tourism for the UK, stating that it is one of the six-largest industries and the third-largest export earner.

What this means is that tourism accounts for £90bn direct spend every year and provides work to 200,000 businesses and represents 4.4% of the nation’s jobs. It is also a particularly widespread industry that covers the entire country, not just the capital and the south-east.

Mr Penrose recognises the need to improve the sector in order to make it more competitive and plans on doing so by concentrating on three key goals:

• Increase the number of visitors to the UK by funding a £100m campaign (co-funded by the government and the private sector) with the aim to attract four million extra visitors to the UK over the next four years. This would create 50,000 new jobs and bring about £2bn to the economy
• Encourage UK residents to spend their holidays at home. For long stays (four nights or more), this would mean increasing the proportion of travellers staying in the country to 29%, up from the current 20%. This would boost spend by £1.3bn and create an additional 26,000 jobs. Moreover, if this is extended to shorter stays, spend could be boosted by a further £750m and 11,000 new jobs could be created
• Improve the tourism sector’s productivity to become one of the top five most efficient and competitive destinations in the world.

More information on how Mr Penrose proposes to do this and a more thorough explanation of what is needed, you can read the Tourism Policy document online.