Tourism Alliance Condemns Government for VisitBritain Redundancies

The tourism industry is dismayed to learn that VisitBritain (the UK's National Tourist Board) is being forced to cut staff numbers by almost 20% - making 80 positions redundant in its London and European offices - to offset the Government's failure to provide any increase in overseas marketing funding for more than 10 years. These cuts come on top of more than 60 redundancies that were made just 3 years ago.

While the industry understands the need for VisitBritain to re-model the business to do the best with declining resources,the fact remains that more, not less, needs to be done to market Britain internationally.

Tony Millns, Chairman of the Tourism Alliance stated, " this is a critical time for the industry with planning underway to maximise the tourism benefits to be derived from staging the 2012 Olympic Games. If we are to achieve the £2bn target that the Government has set for additional tourism revenue to be gained from hosting the Games we need to be increasing VisitBritain's resources, not forcing them to make almost 20% of their staff redundant".

Despite the constant re-structuring that the Government has forced upon VisitBritain over the last 10 years (this is the fourth) the organisation has the full support of the industry, wins international awards for being the world's best international tourist board and the National Audit Office has confirmed that it generates more than £1bn pa for the UK economy.

The Government should be supporting and rewarding VisitBritain on its performance, not allowing it to suffer a 24% decline in real funding levels and forcing it to make redundancies to raise marketing revenue.

Tony Millns continued, "These cuts will be felt by the grass-roots of the industry - the many thousands of small family-run tourism businesses that rely upon VisitBritain to market the country internationally."

For further information, please contact:

Kurt Janson, Policy Director, Tourism Alliance; tel: 020 7395 8246 – mob: 07946428123

Notes to Editors

  • The Tourism Alliance is the Voice of the UK Tourism Industry. It was established in 2001 with the support of the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and comprises 50 tourism-related Trade Associations and Organisations that together represent almost 200,000 businesses of all sizes throughout the UK. Further information about the Tourism Alliance can be found on
  • Tourism is the sixth largest industry in Britain. It generates £85bn p.a. for the UK economy (6.4% of GDP) and directly supports 2.2 million jobs (7.7% of the total workforce). In generating £15bn per annum in foreign exchange, it is also the UK’s third largest export earner.
  • Over the last 10 years the UK's tourism growth has continually under-performed the global average - the UK's tourism deficit has spiralled from £5bn to £18bn per annum, the UK's share of global tourism receipts has fallen by almost 20% and revenue from domestic tourism has fallen by more than 25%.
  • Already this year the Government has doubled Air Passenger Duty, increased the cost of visas to come to come to the UK, and announced the abolishment of the building allowance, further compromising the UK's tourism industry.