Month: June 2024
Tourism and the big three Westminster Party’s manifestos
I have spent some time looking at the main Westminster party manifestos released over the course of this week, hopefully so you don’t necessarily now have to in order to identify any major tourism related policies promises. That doesn’t preclude looking at them all for other purposes but be warned combined they aren’t a short or necessarily easy read.
Not unexpectedly or indeed probably not unreasonably, given the nature and purpose of a party manifestos, there are very few direct references to tourism, leisure, hospitality or the wider more all-encompassing visitor economy. The liberal democrats perhaps come closes to a direct reference with there proposal at their page 84 to “Upgrade the status of tourism in government with a dedicated Minister of State for Tourism and Hospitality” I.E. ensuring that the existing arrangement that see the title and the range of attached responsibilities within the DCMS portfolio, change at the whim of every new Secretary of State and/or on the frequent appointment of each new Minister of State below them.
The conservatives offer at their page 7 to: “Continue to ease the burden of business rates for high street, leisure and hospitality businesses by increasing the multiplier on distribution warehouses that support online sales”. I read this as a promise to continue the current retail, hospitality and leisure relief scheme (extended to 2025 in the 2023 Autumn statement). At page 31 we see a slightly broader but not too dissimilar pledge from Labour at their page 31: “In England Labour will replace the business rates system, so we can raise the same revenue but in a fairer way. This new system will level the playing field between the high street and the online giants, better incentivising investment, tackling empty properties and supporting entrepreneurship”.
The majority of other references are either more oblique or more specific to individual sectors within the “tourism industry”. All three parties promise to address issue within the water industry driving more investment, enforcing (existing) legislation and applying penalties. New rules to limit to varying degrees executive bonus where environmental harm has been done are also promised. At page 56 the conservatives offer “to: “Launch a seaside Heritage Fund to support enhancements to our seaside heritage, preserve and restore our coastal issues”. At page 11 they also promise to: “Maintain our Brexit pub guarantee that means the duty on drink on draft, such as beer and cider, will be less than in supermarkets”. Or at page 70: “Launch a review of the night time economy in England, looking at how to revive the decline in pubs and clubs and how to make our towns and cities great places to go out”. Labour offers some less specific promises which may have relevance to “tourism” including a new industry strategy and a 10-year infrastructure plans.
Clearly all three manifestos cover in their 100 plus pages each, much, much more; a lot of it around the economy and economic regeneration and structural funding support. Far too much to easily or usefully to try to analysis from a purely tourism perspective, at this stage. Beyond highlighting above the very few direct and a couple of indirect references for interests’ sake, the best course of action I can suggest is to wait a few more weeks until the 5th July. Then revisit the winning party’s manifesto with the aim of working with industry colleagues to hold the new Government, whoever forms it, to account to deliver on any direct promises or implied opportunities for “tourism” made within it.
The absence of reference to some recent or ongoing issues from section 21 no fault eviction through statutory registration of short-term let, to VAT refunds on luxury goods purchased by international visitors, does not preclude these issues from being picked up with the new Government. Indeed, their absences in the manifestos, suggests any lobbying effort around these and other hot topics of individual or joint interest will be essential, if any of the momentum gained before the General Elections is not to be totally lost after it. As mentioned in a previous update there are number of actions promised or in train but not completed by the previous Government that need to be identified. Those together with reading between the lines of the manifestos to determine what else is missing, is a critical task for us all in the coming weeks and the early months of the next Government’s term in office.
I would stress again that a lack of direct references to our industry or indeed most other “industries” isn’t either unexpected or unusual. Indeed, a quite the opposite, a big promise around “tourism” would be both extraordinary and, given the diverse nature of tourism, potentially concerning for at least some sub sectors or specific interest groups within it. You can’t please all of the people all of the time. This is precisely why main party manifestos tend to focus on a relatively few big-ticket items and major on generalities, other than around a few key popular and/or differentiating issues which may spark the interest of the majority of potential voters. Sadly “tourism” inbound, outbound or domestic seldom if ever falls into one of these votes grabbing categories.
Making sure that at some point, in some future general election that tourism routinely does feature as a politically important subject remains a long unfulfilled aspiration for many of us and, in particular, for those of whose role is to represent some or all parts of tourism industry. Enhancing the political importance of tourism and/or the wider visitor economy needs to remain firmly on the to do list with the next Government (“it’s the economy stupid”). In some ways gaining proper recognition of the importance of tourism remains more important than perhaps gaining the occasional concession on some or all individual policy asks. Arguable the former may be the missing precursor to more regularly achieving the latter.
Apologies for the variation in the presentation of the links below but that just how WordPress has chosen to present the copied links from the three party’s own manifesto pages, however hard I try to persuade it not to:
https://www.libdems.org.uk/manifesto
British Destinations 