TravelMole comment: ‘Travel industry needs to be loved more’

In an impassioned comment piece, TraveMole’s Graham McKenzie launched a withering attack on government inaction and lack of support, while also highlighting how the travel industry has failed its get its message across effectively.

Here we are 12 months on from one of the worst years for the travel industry since World War II, and we appear to be stuck in a loop – 2021 despite a small summer and autumn respite is ending as it began, with doom and despondency across all sectors.  With the reintroduction of border testing, it is the travel industry that is bearing the brunt, once again, of trying to keep the country safe from the ravages of Covid in its many guises.

In simple terms it’s a policy that has not worked on almost any level. Accompanying the latest restrictions and the fact that travel has been missed off the Chancellor’s Christmas present list (as far as financial support is concerned) have been the well-worn calls of anguish and indignation from all corners – but all appear to be falling on deaf ears.

Now I feel the time has come to examine why the travel industry is ignored time and time again.

Firstly, unless you’re based in and around Gatwick or Heathrow there are no votes in tourism. The industry has nil or very little public support and as a consequence non-existent sympathy for the plight many of us find ourselves in. The public perception is that we are always travelling business class, paying little or nothing for our holidays, ripping families off during school breaks, not refunding cash when cancellations occurred, polluting the atmosphere with jet fuel and that easy low-cost travel will be around forever.

Travel and tourism rarely has a sole voice that speaks for all sectors as pointed out by Jonathan Wall of Ellman Wall earlier this week. Even when it does, it makes a poor job of explaining the good that the Industry brings to the UK both economically and socially. Instead, this and many other voices, just continue to ask for help and hoping for another U turn from 11 Downing street.

Currently Rishi is not for turning. A combined and focussed PR/marketing campaign that does a better job of explaining the benefits that the industry brings to the people of this country would go some way to resolving the issue and allow the Chancellor to turn that steering wheel hard around.

In short, we need to be loved more than we are.

In order to get our message across, we need to be more radical. The summer soiree that took place in Westminster which was labelled as a ‘Day of Protest’ was anything but.  Milling around on College Green for five minutes of fame and then going down the pub really does not cut it. Despite the valiant efforts of many of the trade associations, the feeling of a combined single voice industry appeared to be lost.

I have often used the example that if we were French agricultural workers, we would have surrounded every major airport in the country with taxis, buses and coaches until the message was heard.

Instead, we are a group of paper tigers allowing successive governments to heap additional unjust taxes such as APD, burden us with inflexible VISA applications, not give our industry the same trading conditions as our rivals and not treat us with the same care and attention lavished on other economic sectors. Clive Jacobs of Travel Weekly tweeted recently that we should ban all minsters from flying from the UK to make our point and I agree with him.

The long-term aim must be for our industry to have a position at the top table of government, occupied by somebody who understands the industry, is prepared to upset people when necessary and support us as we move forward in attempting recovery from the ravages of Covid.

This should be our collective aim as we ‘Build Back Better’ in order to protect us from being ignored time and time again by past, current and future governments.

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