Examination of Witnesses (Questions 200-201)
MR KEN
LIVINGSTONE AND
MS MARY
REILLY
1 NOVEMBER 2005
Q200 Mr Hall: We have talked about
bringing the benefits of the Olympics to London and the regions
of the UK, and you have been very positive about this in terms
of local employment. There is a view that we have not got the
skills in tourism to make the benefits which should accrue to
us and what are we going to do to tackle that skill shortage in
the tourism industry?
Mr Livingstone: When I was elected
we had this board called Visit London and it was hopeless, and
I have to say I still have some criticisms about Visit Britain.
I think there is too much of an idea that if you stick a Beefeater
on it or Buckingham Palace they will come, they will not actually
because they know the Beefeaters and Buckingham Palace will be
there forever. You can only market a place like Britain—where
they are not coming for the weather, it is what is happening now—what
is it we are putting on this month that you will never get the
chance to see again? Since we have taken that approach with Visit
London we have managed to double attendance at festivals and events
in London by really skilful marketing. There is always going to
be the background of great historic things, and you can do those
as well, what gets people off their backsides thinking "I
will go to London next weekend" is if we have a very good
offer about something which is most probably unrepeatable. That
is what we have got to do in terms of the whole marketing. Mary
may come in on this as well, in the same way as we have with the
building trade, we just have a skill shortage. At the top level,
our hotels are brilliant and world-class but there is a rather
tacky deal on offer, I still think, for a lot of the middle-band.
Compared with the world-leaders in this, and I think of American
hotels, middle ranking hotels that the average family can stop
in, they offer a very much better deal than we can in this country.
Now part of that is price but also part of it is an approach to
service. I think that is something where, in terms of our training
in this area, we need to put better training in place, we also
need to encourage some of the major providers of the tourism industry,
whether it is hotels or events, that they have got to up their
game in the calibre of training of their staff.
Q201 Chairman: Can I thank you both
very much for giving up so much of your time.
Mr Livingstone: I enjoyed it.
Chairman: I am sure we will want to talk
to you again in due course but, in the meantime, good luck.
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