As a Member of Parliament from Bedfordshire, tourism might seem like an unusual priority for my work in Parliament.
Bedfordshire is not an obvious tourism destination, with a tourism economy that lags behind most of our competitors and a tourism ecosystem that doesn’t yet have the right support in place – being, for example, one of the last places without a Local Visitor Economy Partnership.
And yet, our county has all the right ingredients to be a great place for tourism.
We are well connected to London by train, with a major motorway, an international airport and – in future – a direct train line to Oxford and Cambridge in East-West Rail.
We have some fantastic tourism attractions like Woburn Safari Park, a Centre Parcs, historic houses like Wrest Park in Silsoe; and a charming village way of life, surrounded by beautiful countryside, and with many good examples of the Great British Pub.
Bedfordshire should be a place people want to come and spend time. And with future planned investments like the Bedford to Milton Keynes Waterway Park and the Universal Studios theme park at Kempston Hardwick, we have the opportunity to make a really strong case for people to do just that and turbocharge our visitor economy.
But across the country, there are places like Bedfordshire which have all the right building blocks for a vibrant local tourism economy, but which don’t have the right support from central Government to seize the opportunities for growth, investment and jobs that tourism can bring.
That’s why during English Tourism Week – and in advance of the Government’s promised tourism strategy later this year – I brought a debate in Westminster Hall to look at Government support for tourism.
It couldn’t have been more appropriately timed. Not just coming in English Tourism Week, but coming on the same day that the Government announced a 60% hike in the cost of Electronic Travel Authorisations which their own impact assessments say will cost the economy up to £734 million over five years.
And just over a week before the Government is due to bring in costly increases in employers’ National Insurance which will badly hit UK tourism businesses.
All this despite the Government’s stated aims of economic growth and specifically of achieving 50 million tourism visitors per year by 2030. Growth in tourism will not happen through sheer force of will alone; it needs to be nurtured by Government, with the right conditions put in place for businesses to invest.
For starters, Government needs to finish the job and get a Local Visitor Economy Partnership established in every county, so that all of our counties have the right tools to promote themselves.
They also need to ensure that English Devolution gets the tourism piece right. Establishing tourism as a priority for new Mayors, but ensuring they have the right funding to promote it so that a myriad of new local tourism taxes do not become the norm.
The UK is already internationally uncompetitive on price competitiveness; with expensive visas and bureaucratic processes contributing to that. Where our international competitors are working to attract more people to come and spend more in their economies; too often the Government in the UK has seen tourism visas as a way to generate revenue for the Treasury, not for the economy.
Electronic Travel Authorisations are a case in point. Hiked in price mere weeks after being introduced, despite government assessments showing 100,000 fewer tourists per year as a result.
Of course, tourism is an ecosystem and growing the tourism economy in a place like Bedfordshire benefits all manner of local businesses. From high streets retailers to accommodation, to leisure, culture, hospitality, I could go on and on – all businesses benefit when tourism thrives.
But equally tourism thrives where there are vibrant local economies for people to visit. That’s why supporting our pubs and the businesses on our High Streets is a key part of ensuring that we can grow our tourism economy.
I hope that as the Government’s tourism strategy evolves they will listen to Members from across Parliament and deliver a plan that works to grow tourism in all of our communities.
Government must get support for tourism right
