Examination of Witnesses(Questions 73-79)
MR TONY
BIRD, MR
RICHARD TOBIAS
OBE AND MR
IAN REYNOLDS
TUESDAY 19 NOVEMBER 2002
Chairman
73. Gentlemen, I would like very much to welcome
you here this morning. Perhaps before we launch into questions
Mr Bird might care to introduce his colleagues.
(Mr Bird) Yes, I am Tony Bird and I am Director of
the CBI but I am here as the Deputy Chairman of the Tourism Alliance.
On my right I have Richard Tobias, who is Chief Executive of BITOA
and on my left Ian Reynolds, who is Chief Executive of ABTA.
JOHN
THURSO
74. Good morning. Can I just, first of all,
ask you to clarify for the record and the Committee the extent
of representation that the Tourism Alliance has of the industry?
Just very briefly tell us who you represent.
(Mr Bird) Yes. The industry, as you will know, is
a very fragmented one and a very, very large one. The Alliance
was formed in order to bring together as many elements as it possibly
could. Within that, at the moment, we have between 60 and 70 of
the trade bodies, and I would suggest that is the vast majority
of the trade bodies, who are linked to the Alliance.
75. So it would be fair to say that of virtually
anybody, you represent about as broad a brush as there is to represent
in the industry?
(Mr Bird) Yes, and there is certainly no other organisation
which has a membership as extensive of the industry as the Alliance.
76. The Alliance came into being at the request
of DCMS who felt they did not have somebody to talk to, and they
really needed somebody to talk to with one voice.
(Mr Bird) Partly at their request, but the industry
itself at the time—following Foot-and-Mouth—did recognise
the need to have a more powerful voice to talk to DCMS. So the
two things came together at the same time.
77. Can I ask you, therefore, on the question
of consultation, particularly in respect of the changes of structure
that the Government has announced, whether the Tourism Alliance
was, in your view, properly consulted?
(Mr Bird) No, I think it would be fair to say that
whilst individual members of the Alliance were involved in the
various groups and consultations processes that were done before
the changes—but not necessarily those that recommended the
changes—the Alliance itself was not particularly consulted,
and we did write to the Secretary of State about that.
78. I had a meeting with your Chairman on 20
June, which coincidentally followed the Secretary of State's announcement
on 13 May about the relative changes and consultations which were
taking place, and he told me that at that point the Tourism Alliance
had received no invitation to consult and, in fact, was being
shut out, and he had been trying very hard to speak to the Secretary
of State on the telephone to ask if the voice of the Alliance
could be heard. Again, I understand that in a letter of 28 October
written to Mr Brian Leonard and copied to the private secretary
to Kim Howells, signed by June-Alison Sealey, who is the secretary
to the Alliance, the Tourism Alliance protested fairly strongly
that they had had little or no consultation. Do you feel, therefore,
that the claim by ministers to have widely consulted with the
industry can be said to be correct?
(Mr Bird) Certainly ministers have consulted with
individuals within the industry, but given the rationale for a
Tourism Alliance in the first instance perhaps they could have
gone further and spoken to the Alliance itself.
79. You are being extremely diplomatic. Can
I move on to the new proposals that have been put forward. I think
everybody in the industry had asked for marketing for England,
and that is pretty well taken for granted. I think there is a
genuine welcome that the Government has recognised that that was
a defect in the previous arrangement. In your submission, as with
virtually every submission we have had, what was envisaged was
that ETC—or an English body—would receive a marketing
remit. Instead we have, as we now know, the abolition of the ETC
and one body centred around the BTA to deal with both domestic
marketing for England as well as overseas marketing for the whole
of the United Kingdom. Does the Tourism Alliance believe that
this is an effective way of delivering what the industry asked?
Or would you feel that in actual fact two bodies would be more
appropriate?
(Mr Reynolds) As you suggested, it was not actually
what we asked for or what, as individuals, we had recommended.
We do, of course, welcome the marketing role. I think we do not
actually know enough about the new arrangements to know whether
they are likely to be successful or not, so it is very difficult
for us to have a view. We simply do not know what resources are
going to be available to us or what mission is going to be given.
In particular to the newly constituted ETB within the BTA. That
has still to be revealed, so it is very difficult for us to comment
on it.
|
