Nick de Bois
Main Page: Nick de Bois (Conservative - Enfield North)Department Debates - View all Nick de Bois's debates with the HM Treasury
(10 years, 10 months ago)
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Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)
I draw Members’ attention to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I am also the chair of the all-party group on the UK events industry. I commend our report on the international competitiveness of the UK events industry to the Minister and to Members. That report is relevant to today’s debate, because I want to draw a distinction between business tourism and leisure tourism. Business sector tourism is defined as conferences, meetings, exhibitions, trade shows, corporate hospitality, music industry festivals and sports events, and that sector is worth £36 billion per annum to the UK economy. The industry forecasts that that will rise to £48 billion by 2020. It is worth noting that business visitors to the UK spend £131 a day on average, which is 72% more than leisure visitors. Visitors from overseas spend nearly 200% more on business trips, so the issue applies as much to the business sector as to the leisure sector.
The Minister will be interested to note that there are more than 25,000 businesses in the sector, including organisers, venues, suppliers and direct marketing organisations, representing roughly half a million full-time jobs. The international inbound event industry not only advertises Britain as a place fit to do business with in the permanent long term, but drives additional leisure tourism traffic. The many varied items that bring people to choose the UK, and London in particular, as a destination of choice are all discussed in our report, but I highlight the impact of the delegate fee for visitors. That is critical when choosing whether to come to this country for events, and our VAT position puts us at a competitive disadvantage. The league tables show that the UK is one of the top 10 countries for international meetings, but we are dwarfed by countries where VAT is outside the scope of being reclaimed. That reclaiming adds to the cost of visitors coming to this country. The USA, Japan and Singapore all dwarf us, as do other European countries that have lower VAT rates.
Whether the industry thrives or survives is not just down to VAT, but VAT influences decisions on where to hold events. I urge the Minister to understand that the impact both on the business events industry delegate price, which will influence choice, and on the subsequent leisure prices represent significant leverage in the pursuit of the industry’s goal of £48 billion in attendee expenditure by 2020. I commend the report to the Minister; in it, he will see the argument set out in great detail.