Tourism funding row is reignited

Leisure Report, Sept, 2008

UKinbound has attacked the government's declaration that the travel industry should be responsible for marketing the UK in the run up to the 2012 Olympic Games, reigniting the furore over the Departure of Culture, Media and Sport's decision to cut funds to VisitBritain.

Stephen Dowd, chief executive of UKinbound, said: "DCMS is being characteristically disingenuous in claiming they were responsible for securing the 2012 Olympic Games for London, but arguing that tourism businesses should be responsible for destination marketing shows just how little the department responsible for tourism really understands the industry.

"The tourism industry, the majority of which is made up of small businesses, simply does not have the capacity or the expertise for the international marketing of the UK as a tourism destination. This should be centrally coordinated and undertaken by the national tourist board, which is the only viable and indeed best-practice model that is used by the world's top tourism destinations, and the UK should be no different.

"Is it too much to expect that in return for the 2.9bn [pounds sterling] a year in taxes levied on international visitors and inbound tourism businesses by government we should, at the very least, have a properly funded national tourist board that can deliver a consistent message to our overseas markets and grasp, for the UK economy, opportunities such as the 2012 Games?"