Travel
[pre publish on this page articles and notes which may help our readers- in their plans for travel szt home and abroad. They are written by correspondents who have visited the places described. We shall be glad to answer questions arising out of the Travel articles published in our columns. Inquiries should be addressed to the Travel Manager, The Sriter.vroa, 99 Gower Street, W.C1.1
I.—The ." Cash" Value of Tourists
THOSE responsible for travel in Great Britain might well learn a lesson from their French and Other Continental competitors in 'the art of advertising. M. Tardieu has included in his Budget for 1930 the sum of 1240,000 for " tourism " ; the German- Government is spending annually 1800,000 on propaganda to attract tourists ; • and Holland, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Yugo-Slavia are all supporting intensive adver-
tising campaigns. .
In Great Britain, the Travel Association, of which Lord Derby is president, with a conditional grant of 25,000 -front the State, and with the help of voluntary subscriptions, is • doing its best to increase the number of those who come to this country for pleasure or business. The latest figures show an increase last year of 6 per cent, in visitors from foreign countries.; but unfortunately no Government Depart- ment has yet seen its way to reveal to the public the number of visitors from the British Dominions. This is a defect in our national statistics t1-. at could probably be remedied Without difficulty, as it is understood that the necessary records are taken at the ports.
Each of the 288,891 foreign tourists and visitors on holiday in this country last year must have spent at least £2 a day. The more wealthy spent probably over /10 a day upon hotels, travel and pleasures. Indeed, it is estimated that the total cash left behind was at least £15,000,000. From the point of view of national revenue alone, it is evidently good business to promote "trade by tourism," but we are slow to learn a new idea, and much more could surely be done.
According to the official statistics of the Dominion of Canada, the tourist traffic there is worth £50,000,000, and in fact tourists are paying off Canada's national debt.. South Africa has quadrupled its number of visitors by community advertising. Our British resorts are realizing the value of advertising to a limited extent. Thus Hastings, through a progressive association, spends about £8,000; Brighton about £7,000; Blackpool about £9,000, and Bournemouth about 13,000 to attract visitors. But only a little of this affects tourists from France and the Continent, from America and the Dominions, as compared with the large sums spent by our foreign competitors to attract the British to go abroad. Those who walk through Piccadilly Circus see every: winter a huge electric sign advertising Cannes, and during the summer the sign flashes out the delights of Deauville. Close by are the offices of France, Italy, Germany, NorWay, Sweden, Czechoslovakia, Switzerland, and Denmark, where detailed information regarding foreign resorts is most courteously given by an English-speaking staff.
Possibly one reason for the conspicuous absence of similar advertisement of British resorts is that few municipalities possess the power to co-operate in advertising. Under the Health Resorts and Watering Places Act passed in 1921, health and pleasure resorts have the power to spend the proceeds of rents of chairs, tlre., up- to a total amount not exceeding a penny rate, on certain specified forms of adver- tising such as literature and posters. But they have not the power by law to subscribe to such an organization as the Travel Association of Great Britain and Ireland. Both the Conference of Health and Pleasure Resorts and the Association of Municipal Corporations are believed to be in sympathy with a movement to ask Parliament to grant the power to individual boroughs to subscribe to a co-operative movement for publicity. This is a much needed reform in the present law.
There are a very few towns which have already the power to contribute, but naturally these are disinclined to subscribe in view of the inability of other resorts to do likewise. It is hoped, however, that we shall shortly ." rationalize" our tourist industry, which has such a definite cash value. B. S. TowNitoE.
[Articles providing .constructive proposals to assist Great -Britain's tourist industry will be published later.— ED. Spectator.]
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