Supplementary memorandum submitted by
Tourism Alliance
During the evidence session, three points were
raised where the Alliance feels further clarification may assist.
ALLIANCE REPRESENTATION
The Tourism Alliance is inclusive in approach
to tourism. However, it is an alliance of commercial sector bodies.
Membership of these organisations is driven by a range of businesses:
large, medium, small and even micro, that together invest in the
quality and performance of tourism. It is these businesses that
were asked initially during FMD, and subsequently after September
11, to support the Government in its high profile campaign to
rejuvenate tourism. They did so with sums in excess of £10
million in both cash and kind.
It is now these businesses that will be asked
by Government to invest, again through matched funding, in the
marketing and further promotion of tourism. Indeed, its new approach
to the marketing and promotion of England is predicated on such
a partnership. As such, the Alliance provides the forum where
the representative bodies of the industry's commercial members
can come together to discuss such matters.
A CABINET LEVEL
MINISTER
The Committee pointed out that in England we
do already have a Secretary of State is responsible for tourism,
and as such, there is a representative of tourism at the Cabinet
table. The Committee further asked the evidence team to cite one
country that has a minister solely dedicated to tourism. Israel
and Turkey are two such examples of countries with a dedicated
tourism minister.
Our over-riding point is that given the economic
value of tourism and its importance to the underpinning of so
many communities—both urban and rural—we consider
that the Minister for Tourism should be directly accountable to
the Prime Minister and the Cabinet. Only in this way, will all
relevant Departments understand their role in ensuring the effective
delivery of tourism—be it for example, transport, rural
affairs, skill and training, food standards to name but a few.
REGULATION
Public safety is paramount. The concern for
many tourism businesses is the cumulative burden of regulation.
The Better Regulation Task Force in its report Alternatives
to State Regulation (April, 2000) noted: "No solution
will eradicate all risk, and we have found no evidence that indicates
that state regulation is necessarily more effective than alternative
arrangements at reducing risk".
Such an approach, we contend, does have a role
to play in some parts of the framework for the safe delivery of
tourism. We here cite two examples.
The importance of food safety is unquestionable,
but we do question for example, whether the proposal to label
menus in restaurants to the "enth" degree of minutiae
regarding genetically modified products is a) achievable in practice
and b) were it to be achievable, whether it would engender any
greater public protection or confidence. The internationalisation
of food sourcing and production simply opens the way to unnecessary
burdens and indeed to another avenue of fire in our increasingly
litigious society. The regulations on menu descriptions of GM
foods should be abolished.
Another issue is that of Ofgem's decision on
the resale of electricity. Any regulation should be fair, transparent
and protect the consumer. From 2003, the resale of electricity
will change. The holiday parks sector accounts for in excess of
one quarter of he UK's holiday tourism and an annual spend of
some £2.35 billion. As such it is a key component in the
profile of domestic tourism. The provision of electricity is expected
in all parks.
Under the current system Ofgem publishes unit
rates and daily availability charges; the details are available
to both the consumer and the business operator. No business can
resell electricity to domestic customers above these rates.
From 1 January 2003, Ofgem will operate the
"pass-through principle" regarding the resale of electricity.
This means that the rate charged to the consumer will be the same
as that paid to the electricity supplier. To achieve this, the
park owner is required to undertake apportionment and averaging
calculations in order to establish the unit rate to be charged.
Ofgem has also altered the charging structure for installation,
maintenance and other administration charges regarding the electricity
infrastructure.
The new process will remove transparency and
create the potential for the unscrupulous to obfuscate charges
in a bid to dupe the consumer. Again, this is unwelcome regulation
that will serve neither the myriad of responsible SMEs in the
sector nor the consumer to best effect.
2 December 2002
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