EUROPE Woes Lead Tourists to Look

Visit England has approved for 11 successful applicants to move forward to the 2nd round of its Destination Management Organisation (DMO) Marketing Recovery Fund.

The UK£1 million fund is aimed to support the recovery of tourism in England, and runs from March to the end of June. This helps DMOs to maximise VisitEngland’s national ‘Escape the Everyday’ city-focused campaign to drive bookings of local tourism products.

The ‘Escape the Everyday – Enjoy an English city break this spring,' focuses on cities and city attractions which have been hit particularly hard by the lack of domestic and international visitors. It is estimated by VisitEngland that the loss to the economy in domestic visitor spending in England reached about UK£77 billion, over 2020 and 2021.

FAITH: INDIA TOURISM VISION TILL 2035

FAITH, the policy federation of all the national associations representing the complete tourism, travel and hospitality industry of India has published an India tourism vision with goals and benchmarks as the country commemorates 75 years of independence.

The aim is to make Indian tourism preferred and loved by global and domestic tourists, creating economic and wealth creation opportunities for tourism, travel and hospitality entrepreneurs for India, positioning tourism as a social economic job and infrastructure creator for India, and becoming a role model sector for sustainable and inclusive growth.

FAITH 2035 vision document sets out 'action goals' including a target of 75 million inbound tourists, 7.5 billion domestic tourism visits, offering 75 million direct and indirect employment opportunities from tourism in public and private sector in hotels, travels agencies and tour operations, tourism transportation, food services, destination management and services which are looking after tourists.

In addition to seeing 75 million outbound travellers from India being among the other goals. The industry body said its tourism vision 2035 proposes 4 strategic pillars to achieve the goals such as a shared national tourism approach, value accretive regulations, investment drivers and market excellence.

EUROPE WOES LEAD TOURISTS TO LOOK TO THE AMERICAS FOR HOLIDAYS THIS YEAR

Tourism is definitely not back as before, but there is an upturn in demand as people are fed up to be in their houses and have missed out on life over the past two years. More people are still opting for closer to home destinations and visiting relatives. In addition, the global cost of living crisis will see tourism hit again and in terms of destinations, the current instability in Ukraine is leading to people opting for non-European destinations, like the American continent.

Tourism now needs to focus on 3 key factors: safety, sustainability and inclusion. Tourists today have different needs and expectations and so tourist offerings need to change to meet these needs.

Asia is still limited and with restricted entry, not as easy as before. China is totally closed and travel to Russia is not wise for some. Over the past 2 decades, Europe has built its tourism sector on the large numbers of Chinese and Asian (including Indian), as well as Russian tourists, all high spenders. Now they are not coming and the resulting fall not only in arrivals from these source markets but the lost revenue for Europe will be drastic over the next year or so. There is also no other equal market from where to fill the gap!