UK - Closed for Business?

With the Olympics in London, there has been much debate in Travel and Tourism circles about the tourism benefits of  hosting the Olympic games this year.  London can rightly be proudly of the fact that the Olympics will attract more visitors than any other previous Olympic host city. That's 60,000 international visitors coming purely to see the Olympic games (and twice as many that visited Athens for example)


Critics however argue that this increase in visitors to the Olympics is massively offset by the huge fall in international leisure visitors - or in other words, the huge number of visitors who will actively seek to travel elsewhere in order to avoid visiting London when the Olympics are on!


(For more on this see BlogPost - The Ups and Downs of London Tourism )


However, there is also one other major reason why tourists are choosing to travel elsewhere other than the UK - and it has nothing to do with the Olympics.  It's the difficult and obstructive process of obtaining a visa!  A process so difficult and absurd in its application that many people simply give up!


The European Tour Operators Association (ETOA) have been campaigning and lobbying for a revision of the visa application process for many years seeing a simplification of the visa application process as conducive to boosting to incoming tourist business, and (multiplier) spend.


Last week there was a Radio 4 'Face the Facts' programme dedicated to this very subject  - have a listen to the arguments.  Some will say relaxing visa controls will lead to increases in illegal immigration and terrorism -  other, more rational people will argue that a sensible visa application system will boost visitors to the UK and  generate millions of extra consumption into the UK economy.


(Tom Jenkins of the ETOA and visa-reform-evangelist features in the programme)

G20 recognises Travel & Tourism but must try harder

So, the G20 world leaders have finally recognized the importance of travel and tourism as a driver of jobs, growth, and economic recovery.  Considering the industry will contribute around US$2 trillion in GDP and 100 million jobs to the global economy in 2012, its about time. 

When the wider economic impacts of the industry are taken into account, travel and tourism is forecast to contribute some US$6.5 trillion to the global economy and generate 260 million jobs – or 1 in 12 of all jobs on the planet!

The G20 Declaration states: "we recognize the role of travel and tourism as a vehicle for job creation, economic growth, and development, and, while recognizing the sovereign right of States to control the entry of foreign nationals, we will work towards developing travel facilitation initiatives in support of job creation, quality work, poverty reduction, and global growth.”

Meaning what, exactly?

The G20 could boost  international tourist numbers by an additional 122 million, generate an extra US$206 billion in tourism exports and create over 5 million additional jobs by 2015 just by improving visa processes and entry formalities. 

Of the 656 million international tourists who visited G20 countries in 2011, an estimated 110 million needed a visa, many of whom were deterred from traveling by the cost, waiting time, and difficulty of obtaining a visa. Facilitating visas for these tourists, many from some of the world’s fastest-growing source markets such as the BRICs, could stimulate demand, spending, and ultimately create millions of new jobs in the G20 economies.

The issue of visas has been debated for many years, the European Tour Operators Association (ETOA) have conducted research that show that the Schengen area alone is missing out on close to €500m in tourism revenue due to inefficiency. In a case study 21 per cent of Indians applying for Schengen visas gave up because of delays, while the figure was even higher for the UK at 26 per cent.

On a day that the Government announces that it is scrapping GCSEs and re-introducing more 'rigorous' O-Levels back into schools - their report is 'must try harder'.