Tourism funding gets thumbs up
The Secretary of State for National Heritage, Virginia Bottomley, announced last week that funding for the BTA and ETB would be maintained at the levels published last year.
Despite recent suggestions that tourism funding might be cut, Mrs Bottomley revealed that in the financial year 1996/97, the ETB would receive £10m, while the BTA would get £35.5m, up £1m on last year.
She said the tourism industry benefited all sectors in the department by attracting visitors to historic buildings, museums, art galleries and cultural and sporting events. "We need to support its success and its fight for a growing share of the increasingly competitive international market," she said.
Adele Biss, chairman of both the BTA and ETB, told Caterer: "We've gone up the ladder of strategic importance. The secretary of state has reassured the industry that she will be a champion of the tourism industry."
Regarding ETB funding, Ms Biss added: "In a tough round of spending cuts, this was relatively good news for the ETB."
She said BTA priorities for 1996/97 were to step up promotion of Britain in the Far East where outbound travel is growing fastest, develop more short-break business from Europe and to increase the number of first-time visitors from the USA.
The ETB would be concentrating on raising national standards and improving the bookability and value for money of domestic holidays.
Responses from the industry to the news were generally welcoming. John Jarvis, chairman and chief executive of Jarvis Hotels, told Caterer it was "great to have a secretary of state who recognises the importance of tourism".
The BHA said the fact that tourism now made up a bigger part of the Heritage department's spending showed the Government recognised its importance, though funding for the ETB remained tightly constrained.
- The Local Authority Caterers Association has described the cuts in subsidies for school milk, announced in last week's Budget, as a "blow" to local authority catering. The Government has axed the £4m grant to local authorities for promoting dairy products.
