England expects – but can the ETBdeliver?
Stuart Harrison looks at the uphill struggle facing England in its quest for a more equitable share of the tourism funding pie
"The point is that, at the end of the day, we were fawning diplomats, not fighting defenders of a one-voice English product"
Stuart Harrison is sales and marketing director of Arcadian International. He is a Fellow of both the Tourism Society and the Chartered Institute of Marketing
There are brave, positive soundbites coming out of the English Tourist Board's corner of Thames Tower these days. David Quarmby, the chairman, and chief executive Tim Bartlett have published their Action 2000 plan and it is a commendable list of focused objectives.
They talk of a stronger influence rather than delivery, of equipping through intelligence and support. The plan says they will identify new segments and opportunities, improve communications, promote effectively and launch the new harmonised rating scheme for the accommodation sector.
Action 2000 has been fashioned through a diligent and lengthy period of consultation. The roadshows were encouraging, well received and high profile - I know, I helped sponsor the East Anglia event at our Haycock Hotel in the charming riverside location of Wansford.
Leadership
England, even in its patchwork, eclectic tourist industry, holds much goodwill for its battered and bruised national tourist board. Quarmby believes the consultative review shows clearly that we are all looking for the ETB to provide strong leadership.
Most would agree that Quarmby and Bartlett are an excellent team, and Action 2000 is a genuine desire to address some desperate needs and clear the muddied waters. But they are coming from a long way back.
Some may argue that there has been too much sitting on the fence while the Scots and Welsh in particular took stronger positions, thumping the tables of Government and banging regional heads. And please don't defend this comparison with the hoary old chestnut of a Whitehall department against cash-rich Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland Offices. The point is that, at the end of the day, we were fawning diplomats, not fighting defenders of a one-voice English product.
Massive cuts
For those of you new to the English tragedy, let me recap. The ETB has seen massive cuts in Government grant aid, from £15.3m in 1992/93 to £9.7m in 1998/99. Staffing levels have dropped from more than 200 to 64, of whom only 25 work solely for the ETB, the remainder holding dual ETB/BTA responsibility.
What prompted me to revisit this theme was the devolution bandwagon for Scotland and Wales, which will reinforce even further their fiscal and functional rights to represent themselves in world markets with or without the BTA. Writing in the London Evening Standard, Alex Renton commented: "We give Scotland £6b a year more than we receive in tax revenues, including those from North Sea oil. All those clever, rebellious Scots are so well educated chiefly because we spend 25% - £600 - more per head per annum on them than we do on the English."
So it is with tourism. Just dwell on the following facts and, if you are English, don't just fume at the current situation but look at the scale of the task that Quarmby and Bartlett have inherited.
In 1986/87, the Scottish Tourist Board was given the equivalent of £2.39 per head of population, the Wales Tourist Board £3.35 and the Northern Ireland Tourist Board £2.20. By the current year, Scotland's coffers had swelled to £5.07, Wales's to £6.40 and Northern Ireland's to £11.59.
Over the same period, the English Tourist Board underwent a reduction of 2p from 28p to 26p per head of population. No, you don't require new specs: it does read twenty-six pence.
Writing in the spring issue of Tourism, the journal of the Tourism Society, chairman Ken Robinson poses the question of what happens next to tourist boards. "No doubt devolved parliaments will seize the nationalistic challenge of tourism promotion abroad," he says, "and no doubt England will seem more ‘abroad' on the other side of its western and northern borders when the tourist boards there are funded to fight harder for their share of the UK tourism cake."
Fragmented
He goes on to say that the English regions will remain in a state of flux until the arrangements for the Regional Development Agencies are made public. That, in my view, could still leave England fragmented rather than cohesive, and England as a product will still be undefined, underfunded and with no marketing strategy.
Action 2000 also wants an annual tourism conference, an advisers' "brains trust" and a review group, but will they still be the crumbs under the table while others have their parliaments? n
