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Tourism Society joins criticism of VisitBritain cuts
The Tourism Society has added its voice to industry condemnation of government funding cuts for VisitBritain (see previous stories).
The society described the cuts of almost 20% over three years as “very harmful” to Britain’s tourism and “fails the public interest of the UK population in optimising the potential social, environmental and economic benefits of tourism”.
The Government was urged to rethink what the society described as a “very short sighted decision” at a time when the Arts received an increase of £50 million – more than the entire VisitBritain budget.
Tourism has been the least favoured of the activities within the remit of the Department of Culture Media and Sport under the Labour government, according to the Tourism Society.
“VisitBritain is having to spread its limited funds to cover emerging markets, but as a result investing in our most valuable long established markets has been severely limited,” the Tourism Society said.
“In the USA, VisitBritain ranks somewhere near 30th in spend after places such as Portugal, Panama, Peru, Turkey, Spain, Greece, Aruba, Barbados, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Ireland and Australia.”
With promotional work needed for the 2012 Olympic Games in London needing to be kicked off after next year’s games in Beijing, the Tourism Society warned: “VisitBritain will have to fund initial Olympic-related activities from its reduced grant, further reducing its core activities.”
by Phil Davies
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