Examination of Witnesses (Questions 140
- 159)
TUESDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2007
MS ROS
PRITCHARD, MR
KURT JANSON,
MR TONY
MILLNS AND
MRS BRIGID
SIMMONDS
Q140 Mr Evans: You will be in the
same difficulties as you have here talking about the £350
million for local government expenditure. I think you will come
across the same problem—it is central government money specifically
on the market or whatever country it happens to be. I think that
is important. We are where we are. The Government have now given
a reduction in the support for VisitBritain, so what should they
do with the money now—reprioritise?
Mrs Simmonds: I think they are
going to have to reprioritise. No doubt we will be having discussions
with them in due course about exactly how they are going to do
it. It looks as if there are some areas, for example within Europe,
where they will have to make cuts; yet in our understanding of
how it actually works a lot of the time spent in marketing Europe
is not about getting people physically to come to the UK, it is
about working with local businesses; it is about working out commercial
deals; it is about working with local newspapers. A lot of those
roles are going to fail. Some suggestion that might be left to
the British Council or our embassies overseas: it is not their
role either.
Ms Pritchard: We are very concerned
that VisitBritain have been tasked with cutting their cloth to
meet the budget cuts. Surely what is needed is an independent
and strategic review that should not be based on "just meet
this budget or that budget"; it should be based on, "We're
in a very different world now since 1969. We have got devolution.
Has tourism really been addressed in that devolution process?
Or do we need to look strategically at that?" The leadership
should be coming from Government to look strategically at: what
does tourism need; what should the public sector be doing; where
should that money be spent? Actually look at a proper review,
perhaps at the Act itself, rather than sending VisitBritain off
to undertake a cloth-cutting exercise. What will the impact be?
We cannot tell you until they have decided which bits they are
not going to do any more. That is a difficult decision, where
I think there should be Government leadership.
Q141 Chairman: James Purnell in defending
Government expenditure on tourism specifically highlighted the
£40 million the RDAs are now spending, which obviously was
not the case ten years ago. How effective do you think the RDAs
are at promoting tourism?
Mrs Simmonds: You have got the
three RDAs following who are probably the leaders in their field.
Not all RDAs are the same; not all the RDAs give the priority
to tourism that the RDAs following on from us do. We have had
some very clear late leadership from the South West, particularly
in setting up Partners for England, which has been a way of coordinating
that. I think you have to look at the key role. There is a problem
at the very local level which has difficulty connecting with regional
RDAs. We also have no consistency of interpretation. Some have
to respond and some do not. Some do all the work in-house and
some do not. I think as part of this review which Ros has just
talked about we would like to see all that reviewed and perhaps
more coordination, and we would call for the Act of Parliament
that controls how the industry works to be reviewed and amended
to reflect devolution, both whether it be nationally or indeed
regionally.
Mr Millns: I think there is also
a tension. The RDA spend is to some extent competitive, in that
a visitor attracted to go to Cornwall is a visitor who has not
gone to the Lake District. That is not necessarily a recipe for
consistency of approach in terms of the marketing of the UK internationally.
That is the role we see as absolutely critical for VisitBritain.
That is why VisitBritain needs to have the funding.
Q142 Helen Southworth: Can I follow
up on that and ask you about the growth and how to grow domestic
tourism inter-regionally and across regions. You have said there
a visitor to Cornwall is not necessarily a visitor to the Lake
District. A citizen of the UK has to find something to do with
their time. There is a fairly strong body of opinion that says
if the UK tourist industry provides a better service for the residents
of Britain it is far more likely to get them to spend their pound
than to go to Bluewater or the Trafford Centre or whatever, particularly
in view of the Anholt Nation Brands Index polling, which says
that the UK ranking on visitor perceptions is low: "[...]
while the UK scores heavily abroad for attractions, history and
heritage, the country's image in respect of food, value for money
and customer service is not good". I am sure that will be
reflected if you actually asked the domestic tourist. There is
a huge industry in terms of weekend tourism, four-day tourists,
one-day tourists for people who know that in parts of the tourist
industry you cannot get a cup of tea after 4.30 and no lunch after
two o'clock.
Ms Pritchard: There are certainly
quality issues. Quality is one of the key tourism strategic issues
that we have been addressing with DCMS all the way through. Actually
if you look at my members, they live by repeat business and incredible
loyalty to the product and people returning—80% repeat business.
People are not returning if the service is not right. You have
to have the product right, but also the service right. Domestic
tourism is not just competing with retail, it is also competing
now with the low costs where it is a choice between a weekend
in Barcelona or Prague, or a weekend in Devon or the Lake District.
We are getting the repeat business, and those businesses survive
by it. If you are away from a tourist hotspot that is going to
attract tourists however you treat them, as it were, you are not
going to survive unless you have got your service right; both
word of mouth and repeat business is the way they live. Certainly
the domestic market needs that extra to keep pushing to keep the
20% coming in over and above where they are living; but they would
not be returning with such frequency if the service was wrong.
Q143 Helen Southworth: Surveys are
saying that we are not getting a good response from people when
we are asking them what they think about the service. You are
complaining that the industry is not getting the growth that it
needs; it is not getting the marketing that it needs. You cannot
market a product that people do not think is good enough.
Mr Janson: The Anholt survey you
are talking about there is overseas perceptions of Britain, rather
than the reality of the situation. What the report also shows
is when people come over here and actually experience the accommodation
and experience the food, they rank it as higher than they expected.
The perception problem we have got needs to be addressed by undertaking
very good marketing in those countries. That is a way of getting
round it, to showing people what the reality of the situation
is.
Q144 Helen Southworth: You are saying
there is not an issue around skills, availability of service or
cups of tea after 4.30
Mr Janson: I am not saying there
is not an issue. There is a wealth of anecdotal evidence. Everyone
can come up with an experience they have had that has not been
up to standard. We are not going to have an industry where absolutely
every experience is going to be fantastic. What we can do is raise
the level, and we are doing that. We have got a lot of work being
done by ourselves, by VisitBritain, to address that. What I am
saying is we have a very high rating from the people who do come
over and experience the product. We also have an 80% return rate
from overseas visitors. They obviously have a very good time over
here while they are here. Yes, we address skills and quality,
and we need to do so; but we should not denigrate the product,
which is very, very good.
Q145 Helen Southworth: What specific
things are being done within the industry?
Mrs Simmonds: We work very closely
and I am a council member of People First which is the sector
skills council for our sector looking at training. They are doing
a lot of work with the RDAs. There is an enormous amount of work
going on with schemes like Welcome Host, to look at how we can
welcome the world in 2012. That is an ongoing process which the
leadership of industry are very much participating in. Then there
is the grading system which VisitBritain has very much piloted.
It has got the AA and RAC working together so that we have a system
that people understand in terms of stars and attractions. Indeed
it is going to have the same sort of system introduced. It is
something the industry is well aware of. Individual businesses
are well aware of it because if they do not have repeat visits
then their business will fail. Again, if they are the wrong sort
of business then they probably should not be there anyway.
Q146 Helen Southworth: Can I ask
you about what sort of responsiveness you are seeing within the
industry to the need for sustainable tourism? This is something
that people say we have not got quite as right as we need to,
and certainly not as right as our competitors across the rest
of Europe.
Mrs Simmonds: I think we have
moved that agenda forward within industry considerably. It used
to be something you thought was quite a good idea but you rather
parked on the side. It has now become an absolutely essential
and core part of businesses. We have a lot of business working
with the Carbon Trust. We have a lot of business working internally
with their employees to make sure they are much more sustainable
in their lights and their recycling, in packaging. We all have
a requirement to separate and package our recycled waste from
1 October. For those businesses which spend over £½
million on electricity a year they will be having a tax probably
which will come through in one of the bills that Parliament will
soon be considering. I had my Business In Sport and Leisure conference
last week. Dr Peter Bonfield speaking from the Building Research
Establishment who talked about the BREEAM standard, which is a
standard by which we build buildings to make sure they are sustainable
for the future. He is also a consultant to the ODA. I think it
is being taken much more seriously within the industry than it
ever was before.
Q147 Helen Southworth: Is that the
general feeling?
Ms Pritchard: There are businesses
adopting this. The Green Tourism Business Scheme, which actually
provides a sustainable environmental management system. There
is the David Bellamy Conservation Award Scheme which looks at
biodiversity and habitat, as well as sustainability issues. It
is not always that easy. We still have not got all businesses
that recycle their waste able to have that collected and taken
away. We are going to the private sector just to get our recycled
waste taken away. Anecdotally, there is a lot of self-catering
accommodation that has fitted the low electricity light bulbs
and they leave with the guests because of course they are so much
more expensive than normal light bulbs. We need the technology
to come on so that we can lock our light bulbs in. We are doing
the right thing and discovering all sorts of new consumer behaviour
as a result! The thing we have discovered, and we work with David
Bellamy on his Conservation Award Scheme, is that the market actually
wants green. The ultimate incentive to business is the bottom
line. As the market turns green then the clever industry will
follow. The light bulb is one which has surprised me.
Q148 Helen Southworth: In terms of
the impact that British weather inevitably has on tourism and
issues around seasonal tourism, have you got an opinion on Double
British Summer Time?
Mrs Simmonds: Yes, I think we
all support Double British Summer Time. It is very clearly a Tourism
Alliance policy. I think politically it is very difficult to see
how that is going to work in the future, particularly with the
separation with Scotland. To be honest, the issue of British Summer
Time is in the hands of the politicians. You have to decide whether
you are prepared to go for another pilot or to indeed move that
forward. We are very supportive of it, but I think recognise the
political difficulties of it ever being introduced.
Ms Pritchard: There are sustainability
issues there as well looking at lower carbon usage if we did go
for it.
Mr Millns: The Cambridge research
published two or three weeks ago was very strong on both the safety
side and on the sustainability side.
Q149 Janet Anderson: You have mentioned
the need for a thorough review and I think I would agree with
you on that. Do you see that as a review of the structure of support
for tourism? Given that we have a VisitWales and VisitScotland
that are very proactive overseas, is it still appropriate to have
a VisitBritain, or should it perhaps be a VisitEngland?
Ms Pritchard: I think there is
a very strong view that there should be a VisitEngland, but Britain
is a very important brand, particularly the further away the market
the less it is England, Scotland and Wales. It is a role for both.
The review could be a review of the Act, but we certainly need
to look at structures. We mentioned earlier about France and Germany,
both of which had devolved tourism responsibility. I think there
is a lot to be learnt by looking at the way their structures work
as well. They have had devolution longer, and the joy of devolution
is the competitiveness it sets up between regions; but, particularly
in an overseas market, you also need cooperation. How do we achieve
that and get the best we can for the investment? There is an enormous
review which needs to happen, but there is a very strong body
of opinion within the industry that we need a VisitEngland and
we need a strong VisitEngland; but that does not get away from
the Britain round and therefore a VisitBritain.
Q150 Janet Anderson: Could you have,
maybe, VisitEngland, VisitWales and VisitScotland that would come
together in some kind of form to market Britain when that was
necessary?
Mrs Simmonds: I think that does
actually happen. I think this is a question for VisitBritain more
than for us. I think that does happen and we would like to see
it happen more. At the moment we have overlapping structures,
and we have overlapping structures with different responsibilities.
The RDA is responsible to BERR, and tourism is the responsibility
of DCMS. It is getting that coordination right that is hugely
important to us. There is a very good case study of Germany and
how they dealt with the Football World Cup; hugely successful
in tourism terms. They started early; they had a campaign; and
it is something we could certainly learn from when we have 2012
here.
Q151 Philip Davies: Just going back
to the funding for VisitBritain, the Secretary of State when he
came here said that the reason it was being culled was because
they identified efficiency savings that could be made at VisitBritain.
Why do you think that that is wrong?
Mrs Simmonds: The National Audit
Office did a report on VisitBritain which actually showed that
they had a rate of return of 30:1. There are not many non-departmental
public bodies who can actually achieve that. I have to be honest
and say we have had a recent letter from the Minister which talks
about the great organisation that VisitBritain is, and indeed
its efficiency in the way it works, so I have some difficulty
on that. I think there is perhaps a misunderstanding of exactly
how VisitBritain works overseas. These are Tony's words—we
are the difference between bricks and clicks; the suggestion that
people now market through clicks on the Internet rather than through
bricks in buildings. With the knowledge of the industry, you have
to understand that part of that VisitBritain structure is as much
to do with working with other organisations within the countries
where they are, as it is about expecting people to come into a
tourist office and be given brochures. Yes, of course it is true
we have got people who market by the Internet, but then you have
to make sure you have the right exposure within those countries
to do just that.
Q152 Philip Davies: You do not believe
the Secretary of State has been able to identify the efficiency
savings?
Mrs Simmonds: He says he is going
to identify it by asking VisitBritain to do their own review.
We would prefer it to be an independent review, which had some
independency in how it was taken out. Turkeys voting for Christmas
is perhaps the right analogy.
Q153 Mr Hall: Ros, can you tell me
what the role of the Tourism Alliance is?
Ms Pritchard: Tourism Alliance
brings together 50 tourism trade associations to try and provide
a single voice for tourism to Government. We were formed following
the foot and mouth crisis where there was very great concern that
in 2001 the farmer's voice was clearly heard and tourism was overlooked.
That was the momentum to get the Tourism Alliance to work together,
but we are an incredibly broad church, from caravans, to inbound,
from language schools, to sport; an incredibly broad church which
tries to bring together and provide a single voice for tourism.
Q154 Mr Hall: Do you think you have
got a role in promoting Britain as a place for people to visit?
Ms Pritchard: To be honest, it
is not the way the Alliance is resourced, to actually be a promotion
body. I do not even know if it could be resourced that way because
the different trade associations are resourced by their industries
in different ways. For example, as I mentioned before, the majority
of my members (with my day hat on) are micro and SME businesses
with a very different set of needs from another trade association.
With the leading visitor attractions, for example, I do not think
there are many micro-businesses and it is a completely different
market.
Q155 Mr Hall: I was thinking, if
this was actually being broadcast and there were people in the
wider world listening to it they have not heard anything from
you this morning that would attract them to Britain.
Mrs Simmonds: We think there is
an enormous amount to attract them to Britain. We do see it as
the role of Government to fund how it should be marketed. If you
look at the sort of membership from British Airways to American
Express—of course they go round the world marketing Britain,
and we have a clear role there. Following foot and mouth the industry
worked in partnership with the Government to do a joint marketing
campaign which we were prepared to consider again until 2012,
but the Government has not been able to put up even their half
of any money that might be looked for to allow us to do that.
Q156 Mr Hall: There are seven specific
areas where you talked about Government's taxation policy: VAT
rates on restaurants, and also accommodation; visa charges; airport
taxes; proposed increase in Capital Gains Tax; and liquor licences.
If we were to scrap all that, how much would that cost the Government?
Mrs Simmonds: I am afraid I could
not possibly answer that question just off the top of my head.
Yes, of course there is a cost to it, but again it is about where
you redefine that and how you balance that with the money that
the tourism industry actually brings in to the Government coffers.
Q157 Mr Hall: How much more money
do you think the Government should be spending?
Mr Janson: Could I just answer
the last point. On the visa side, we are actually undertaking
work with the Home Office at the moment to determine what would
be the impact of reducing visa costs. If you take the example
of the people from India, each person from India actually spends
a thousand pounds once they get into the UK. If we are charging
them £63 for a visa and £40 air passenger duty we gain
£100 but lose £1000 if we deter them. We are going through
with government departments looking at what the impact would be
of reducing charges on the net benefit that the UK economy would
gain from this. On the accommodation side there was a report done
by Deloitte Touche back around 2000 which determined if the VAT
rate on accommodation was reduced to the European average there
would actually be a net benefit to the UK economy.
Q158 Mr Hall: How much?
Mr Janson: Off the top of my head
it is a changing benefit, depending on how many years from the
introductory year, but it is in the order of £500 million
to a billion pounds per annum.
Mrs Simmonds: I think the answer
to the second question is, even if we had had an inflation indexed
rise for the last nine years we would have felt we would have
gone somewhere; but to do absolutely nothing and then cut it by
18%, particularly the third cut which is particularly swingeing,
does give us a real problem.
Q159 Mr Hall: How much more should
the Government be spending? It is a very straightforward question.
Ms Pritchard: I think it would
be wrong to answer it, any more than it is correct to make a cut
and then, say, review it—
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