Wishing all members and friends of the Tourism Alliance a happy, successful, and prosperous 2023!
National planning policy consultation open
Possible changes to industrial action law
Experience Oxfordshire looking for new Board Chair.
ICYMI – The TA Policy agenda for 2023 – hard copies available
A new look Tourism Alliance coming soon
***SAVE THE DATE*** – Tourism Insights Conference and Parliamentary Reception – 23rd March
We will be hosting a half-day Tourism Insights Conference followed by our annual Parliamentary Reception during English Tourism Week this year on Thursday 23rd March.
More details will follow soon, but for now, please do make a note in your diary and save the day. We’re going to have some great speakers and panels looking at data, stats and insights into what we’ve learned about 2022, how 2023 is shaping up, and what might be in store for 2024.
There are plenty of sponsorship opportunities available for both the half-day conference and the parliamentary reception. If your organisation – whether a TA member or not – is interesting in these opportunities do let me know. In particular, we will be providing spaces for organisations to display pop-ups and materials at the reception which will be great for photo ops with visiting MPs and Peers. Contact me at Richard.Toomer@tourismalliance.com to discuss this further.
More details about both events will be coming to you very soon.
National planning policy consultation open
The Government has launched a consultation on its plans to reform national planning policy in support of its levelling-up agenda. The consultation closes on 2 March 2023.
If your organisation is intending to respond to this consultation, or if the issues raised in it are relevant to you, please let me know.
Possible changes to industrial action law
The Times is reporting that we will see the Government move very soon to bring in new industrial action laws to restrict strike action in a number of sectors including – relevant to us – the railways and border security.
Strikes in these sectors along with health, education, and fire, would be deemed illegal if unions refused to provide a minimum level of service. Labour have pledged to repeal any further restrictions on unions’ ability to take industrial action.
Unfortunately, there appears to be no end in sight to the industrial action we have been seeing.
By way of commenting for a story for the Times this week we said:
“The tourism industry is facing an extremely difficult 2023 with the ongoing cost-of-living crisis impacting people’s willingness and ability to travel and energy costs hitting businesses directly. We’ve also had further disappointing news about the restoration of Covid testing and checking requirements for visitors from China.
“The ongoing rail disruption caused by strikes is yet another blow. Businesses relying on leisure customers travelling by rail are being hit massively, and the ongoing uncertainty is hitting booking confidence. One way or another this crisis on our railways must be resolved urgently and we call on all sides to work towards a solution. We cannot let this drag on and on into the prime tourist season.”
Experience Oxfordshire looking for new Board Chair.
Our members, Experience Oxfordshire, are currently recruiting for a new Chair of their board.
The recruitment pack is available here. Please feel free to share this among your networks.
ICYMI – The TA Policy agenda for 2023 – hard copies available
Late last year we published our policy agenda for 2023 titled Tourism and the UK’s Economic Recovery. This paper outlines our 10 policy prescriptions for helping tourism deliver growth for the UK economy.
You can download the PDF of our agenda document on the TA website. However, if you would like some hard copies, maybe for you to provide around your offices, or when meeting stakeholders, do let me know and we can get some put in the post to you.
A new look Tourism Alliance coming soon
Just a note to keep your eyes peeled over the next few weeks as we unveil a new logo, look, and brand for the Tourism Alliance. We will be rolling this out to our social media pages, on our digital assets, email signatures and documents. And later this year we will be investing in a new website which will bring the site up-to-date and reflect this new look and feel.