Latest research highlights businesses’ top concerns

Thank you to everyone who completed our latest Business Performance Tracker. The results are now in and reveal the top seven concerns for tourism businesses are all costrelated, with 94% highlighting rising energy bills

Other related issues include the impact of the cost of living crisis (71%) and passing on cost increases to customers (66%), as well as inflation (56%) and the cost of labour (52%) and fuel (48%)

Carried out in conjunction with our Strategic Partner Lamont Pridmore, it also shows that 86% of businesses feel staff recruitment continues to be a significant challenge

Looking at business growth and confidence, the short-term picture is fairly pessimistic, but the figures do suggest signs of longer-term positivity and an improved situation compared to six months ago

The results come hot on the heels of the recent Spring Budget, which saw some welcome measures from the Government, including improved childcare provision, which we hope will help get more people into the labour market

However, many of the industry’s key asks were absent, including no help for businesses facing growing costs across the board

We are already using this vital new evidence to continue highlighting the key issues at government level, arguing why more innovative solutions are needed

To access a full summary of the research, log onto our Media Library Also see page 6 for the latest on our work to tackle recruitment challenges and inspire future careers in the tourism industry

Leading voices in tourism

Our recent Spring Members’ meeting was timed to coincide with English Tourism Week, making it the perfect time to discuss how CT is collaborating with partners to support and celebrate our incredible industry and its people

It brought together VisitBritain CEO Patricia Yates alongside Richard Toomer from The Tourism Alliance Both shared insights into ongoing challenges and consumer trends, as well as highlighting key campaigns to support our industry

Meanwhile, former athlete Steve Cram revealed plans for Cumbria’s newest health and wellbeing ‘Wild GOAT’ Festival He said while the events industry had suffered during the pandemic – and consumer tastes are changing – there’s still great potential for it to be a key driver for Cumbria’s visitor economy

For those able to attend, we hope you found the contributions useful and insightful See the presentation slides here

Cumbria Tourism has submitted its application to become one of the new ‘Local Visitor Economy Partnerships’ - or LVEPs - officially recognised by VisitEngland as leading tourism management and marketing for some of the country’s key visitor destinations.

The creation of LVEPs is a key recommendation to come out of the wide-ranging ‘Du Bois’ report to the Government, which independently scrutinised the best ways to maximise the potential of the visitor economy nationwide

Meanwhile, we were pleased to welcome VisitEngland’s new Regional Lead for the North West and the Midlands, Nicola Said, to Cumbria as part of English Tourism Week We will be working closely with Nicola in the coming months to make the most of new opportunities

70,000 subscribers to CT’s visitor e-newsletters in February 2023

22 million page views on visitlakedistrict.com in the last 12 months

355,000 followers across CT’s social media channels in February 2023

PR team meets the national media

Our PR team headed down to London recently to showcase our destination to 60+key national and international media on your behalf, sharing stories and feature ideas for the year ahead

The gathering hosted by VisitEngland was a chance to meet individually with journalists representing media outlets with a huge collective reach, ranging from National Geographic, Time Out and Which? Travel to The Times, City AM and The Sun