Wuhan Coronavirus: Tourism

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara Excerpts

Wednesday 26th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran]

As I tried to explain in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Lee, the Minister for Tourism is working closely with the industry and the Government. As the noble Lord, Lord Clark, will be aware, we recently announced a tourism deal to meet a number of the issues that he rightly raised.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness mentioned the work that VisitBritain is doing to try to understand better what the impact will be of this awful situation. I looked at its website this morning and noticed that it was still suggesting that there will be an increase in overseas visitors this year of some 2.9% and a growth in income from £25 billion to £26.6 billion. Does she have current figures to share with the House? Are there any plans that are not just reliant on hope, such as suggesting staycations and other ways in which we might increase the volume of traffic to those who have to suffer disbenefit, from internal resources?

[Baroness Barran]

Obviously, VisitBritain is responsible for the data on its website. I asked the same questions of officials that the noble Lord put to me. Rightly, the view is that there are many moving parts to this and that trying to come up with a number is probably not helpful. What is helpful is to be in constant communication with the sector, listening and engaging with it, and working across government, which is what we are doing.