Unexpected allocation available to discover the beauty of the Balkans from AGTO Associate Jenny Cookman…
Tourism Alliance update
In this update:
- Tourism Insights Conference review
- English Tourism Week Parliamentary Reception
- ALVA publishes latest visitor stats
- Office for Place
- 13k+ emails now gone to MPs on furnish holiday lets
- Visit Nottinghamshire’s 25th anniversary
Tourism Insights Conference review
Thanks to those who came – and especially to those who presented at – our Tourism Insights Conference earlier this week.
We had fantastic presentations from our speakers all of which gave us really good data and insight into where the industry is right now, where the challenges remain, and where there is opportunity for growth.
We will be circulating all the slides and recordings of the presentations in the coming days.
English Tourism Week Parliamentary Reception
We had a great turnout at the reception. By our count 31 MPs came to help us celebrate English Tourism Week, listen to the speakers, and take a copy of our brand new policy document, Realising The Potential, which you should all now have either a digital copy, or a physical copy from the events this week.
We are extremely grateful to Luke Pollard MP (Lab, Plymouth Sutton and Devonport) for hosting the reception. As he reminded us in his speech – he was once a Tourism Alliance board member, so it was great to hear him use that experience to appeal to MPs to listen to the Tourism Alliance’s policy suggestions on behalf of the whole industry.
We are also grateful to our other speakers, Fiona Pollard from VisitEngland, Barbara Keeley MP (Lab, Worsley and Eccles South), the Shadow Tourism Minister, and of course to Julia Lopez MP (Cons; Hornchurch and Upminster) the Tourism Minister.
Without our friends at the Caravan and Motorhome Club and the British Beer and Pub Association who kindly sponsored the event it would not be possible – so we reiterate our thanks to them, and to our co-hosts in Family Holiday Charity and VisitEngland.
ALVA publishes latest visitor stats
Our colleagues at ALVA published their latest attraction visitor figures which received lots of attention in the press.
All the details are available here but the headlines are that total visitors to ALVA attractions in 2023 was up 19% of the previous year, but 11% below the 2019 peak, which correlates to much of the data we also saw presented at the Insights Conference.
Bernard Donoghue’s comment was: “Our members are not yet back to hosting the same number of visitors that they did in 2019, but they are really delighted that even in a challenging cost-of-living climate visitors are still prioritising spending special time with special people at special places.”
“Whilst the extension of tax relief for museums, theatres and galleries was a very welcome announcement in the recent Budget, there was a missed opportunity to reintroduce tax free shopping for overseas visitors, which would have improved the UK’s international competitiveness, and reduce VAT for tourism and hospitality which would have helped businesses repair their balance sheets.”
Office for Place
A new Government arms-length body got underway this week. The Office for Place is under the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (DLHUC) and their mission is to help “neighbourhoods to create beautiful, successful & enduring places that foster a sense of community, local pride and belonging.”
Place-making is obviously an essential element of tourism and destination development too, and it will be important that the Office for Place is engaged with the tourism sector and to bring our expertise and knowledge to its work. We look forward to engaging with them.
13k+ emails now gone to MPs on furnish holiday lets
PASC’s email campaign to MPs has gone great guns and more than 13,000 have now been sent which highlight the danger and unfairness of abolishing the FHL tax regime.
If you have not yet done so, please add your name, and use PASC’s platform to send an email to your MP (it takes just a minute), and share widely in your networks.
Visit Nottinghamshire’s 25th anniversary
We were very pleased to be part of Visit Nottinghamshire’s Tourism Summit in Sherwood Forest this week. The summit was partly a celebration of the organisation’s 25 th year anniversary. Here’s a video in recognition of that:
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