Social Tourism
Debate between Baroness Rawlings and Lord Lee of Trafford
Baroness Rawlings
I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, was on the all-party group on social tourism. The Government were looking at this, but have not pursued it further. We are keeping an open mind and are aware of the European Calypso programme.
Lord Lee of Trafford
My Lords, I declare an interest as chairman of the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions and of the all-party tourism group. The proposed tax changes on air passenger duty, philanthropic giving to our great museums and galleries, restoration work for our major cathedrals, churches and historic properties and on static caravans all potentially have a negative impact on our very important tourism industry. Given that DCMS is a sponsoring ministry for tourism, could my noble friend tell the House whether it had any discussions before the implementation of the ideas of these tax changes?
Baroness Rawlings
The noble Lord asks a very relevant question. Regarding the tax changes, they are still very much in discussion. We are well aware that they have an effect on tourism and on many of the museums and galleries and all the charities that are involved with this. This is partly covered by the Treasury, but DCMS is very much aware of all this.
Tourism: UK Economy
Debate between Baroness Rawlings and Lord Lee of Trafford
Lord Lee of Trafford
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I declare an interest as chairman of the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
Tourism has huge potential for growth. It supports 1.5 million jobs with visitor spend of nearly £90 billion each year. Deloitte estimates a direct and indirect value to the UK economy of £115 billion and suggests that tourism could be the fourth fastest growing sector over the next 10 years, indirectly and directly supporting a total of nearly 3 million jobs by 2020.
Lord Lee of Trafford
I thank my noble friend for her Answer and welcome her to her first tourism Question. In a speech recently the Prime Minister said:
“Tourism presents a huge economic opportunity. Not just bringing business to Britain but right across Britain driving growth in the regions and helping to deliver the rebalancing of our national economy that is so desperately needed”.
That is all very laudable, but does my noble friend realise that tourism faces a double whammy? First, there is a 34 per cent reduction in the funding to our national tourist board, VisitBritain, and then—this has been referred to earlier—the abolition of the regional development agencies, which significantly supported many tourism projects in the regions, often on a match funding basis, and also supported the destination management organisations? There is no way that local enterprise partnerships will have the coverage or the resource to replicate this.