BTA to rethink its foreign policy

The British Tourist Authority (BTA) is to curtail its operations in 22 countries overseas in a bid to concentrate its resources on those that send more visitors to the UK.

In some cases, including China and New Zealand, BTA offices will be shut down completely. In others, BTA representatives will be withdrawn and a Web site offered instead. In all, 27 staff and 16 other representatives will be made redundant.

Some countries will not even be left with a Web site, including China and every African country except South Africa.

BTA chairman David Quarmby said that the authority's grant from the Government had stayed constant at £35m for the past two years, but that this represented a fall in real terms when inflation was taken into account.

But Quarmby refused to criticise the Government for the fall in funding and preferred to stress that the reallocation of BTA resources should provide better value for money. He added that funding would rise next year.

Quarmby said that other tourist boards, including Bord F ilte (the Irish tourist board) and the French tourist authority, already concentrated their resources on fewer countries.

The 26 countries on which the BTA will now concentrate provide 88% of the UK's visitors and 80% of its income.