Environment

Who wants 40 million tourists?

George Young

Scarcely a week goes by without one reading of the unhappy consequences brought about by a fast growing tourist industry in some Pacific or Caribbean island, and while more and more people are aware that there are two sides to the tourist coin, they tend to believe that only that sort of destination is vulnerable.

It is my belief that the UK faces equally severe problems, though of a somewhat different nature; but because we have never regarded tourism as a very important issue we are failing to recognise and react to those problems. Indeed, in our treatment of tourism, we lag behind many countries that we are pleased to call 'underdeveloped.' This is shown by a recent report on the organisation of the tourist industry in Commonwealth countries which says, "In cases where tourism makes a significant contribution to the economy, many governments have now integrated tourism into their general economic and social plans." The UK shows no signs of doing this, nor of understanding why it is desirable to do so.

Tourist arrivals in the UK have risen from 1.7 million in 1960 to about 8 million in 1973; the UK population is now more affected by tourism than the population of Spain, Italy or Jamaica. This can be shown by comparing the number of nights spent by tourists in those countries with the number of their residents. The UK figure is 1.72 tourist nights per resident and those for Spain, Italy and Jamaica are 1.56, 1.27 and 1.21 respectively. The figure of London is 8.6.

The number of overseas visitors has been forecast by the Roskill Commission to rise to 40 million in 2006 — a fivefold increase in thirty years, when many people believe we have already reached saturation level. What has not been grasped is that we do in fact have a choice; we can build another international airport, pave the streets of London with hotel forecourts and have 40 million tourists. Or we can not build the airport, not pave the streets of London with hotel forecourts and not have 40 million tourists — and spend the money on something else.

What has gone wrong is that the issue has never been presented in such a way as to reveal this choice and to permit a sensible debate as to what is in our best interest. Controversy has indeed surrounded that terrible trio — Concorde, Maplin and the Channel Tunnel — all of which relate in one way or another to international travel.

But an implicit assumption has been made that more and faster international travel is a good thing and the debate has tended to concentrate on side issues — where should London's third airport be and when should it open; should we build a Channel tunnel or a bridge, or rely on expanding sea travel; what are the legal implications and the unemployment consequences of abandoning Concorde. The more important questions were not and are not debated at all — should we be building another international airport anywhere; do we need a fixed link with the continent; does the world need supersonic passenger aircraft?

The fundamental issue underlying all of them and which has never been considered is what pattern and volume of international travel is in this country's long term interest; and until that is resolved the debates on Maplin and similar issues all take place in a vacuum since one cannot relate them to a central policy and see whether they fit in.

In the absence of such a policy, we have dealt with tourism in a typically pragmatic British way, busily removing all the obstacles in the path of tourist development without asking where the path leads and whether we want to go down it. When expansion was threatened by a shortage of hotels, we brought in the Hotel Development Incentives; when expansion was subsequently threatened by a shortage of airport capacity, we passed the Maplin Development Bill; both of which measures, incidentally, involved the resident taxpayer in no small cost although he is arguably less well off than the international traveller he is subsidising.

But why do we have to continue down this particular path? So far as building roads in cities is concerned, we are in the process of changing paths; not because motorists have stopped wanting to drive their cars in cities but because the costs imposed on society in terms of noise, pollution, congestion and blight, if increased provision were to be made, simply outweighed the benefits to the motorists. If we can change paths so far as the motorist is concerned, and few would denY that we are right to do so, why is it not possible to come to the same conclusion about the tourist?

To answer this point, one must look at the institutional machinery in this country for dealing with tourism. Since the Development of Tourism Act 1969, the British Tourist Authority has been responsible for advising the government on all matters concerning tourism. This is analogous to making the Brewers' Society responsible for advising the government on alcoholism, since the BTA's board is composed of gentlemen who have a dedicated commitment to continuous growth in tourism. The chairman was, at the time of his appointment, closely connected with Clarksons, one of the largest tour operators in the world; other members include the managing director of British Airways and the chairman of a large hotel chain. Arguments about the possible adverse effects of tourism are not therefore welcomed by the BTA and are greeted with gestures of ill-concealed ith' patience and hysterical letters in the press. Reading through recent BTA annual reports, one quickly realises why the government gets such unbalanced advice on tourism and whY the options mentioned earlier were never ventilated.

"Never therefore," we are instructed, "hes there been a clearer need than now td, promote this country hugely overseas and encourage the world to come to Britain • • • ways must and can be found to reduce congestion ... over 10 million tourists frorn overseas are likely to come to Britain in 1975, but only if we work to encourage them te come." I The BTA substantiate their position wi1t11 arguments that are intellectually shallow. le their 1970 annual report, three reasons vverS given for wanting more tourists, all of whicil bring a hollow laugh to the Londoner: 1. "Tourism conserves our inheritance and improves the environment." Part of inheritance is Westminster Abbey, and it fist difficult to see that tourism is conserving it ' was calculated by consultants that its enci vironmental capacity was 700, but in July an August there are often more than 3,000 inside. As for improving the environment one al but quote the Architectural Review's descriP" tion of London's new hotels: "The new hotelS, which will last two generations and toot( perhaps two years to build, all look as if they had taken about two hours to design. It seern4 likely that the hotels of 1969-73 would u.0 recognised as a very undesirable accretion 1, our architectural heritage." 2., "Tourism helps the balance of payrrienri,tis, and brings prosperity to many parts of tam." The first statement has never beell" tested in this country; those countries wh.1c5, have tested it got a nasty shock. In Mauritill.„ for example, it was discovered that net foreir, exchange benefits to the island from inclusitval tours amounted to only 10 per cent of wde expenditure when deductions had been 1113 A for the takings of overseas airlines, foreifgor tour operators, imports of provisions . 0 tourists and repatriation of profits by forle hotel developers. In the UK one must adri,io remission home of wages by staff brough; of from overseas. (75 per cent of the stafr ufl_ro 1 London's largest hotel company come ny , overseas.) As for bringing prosperity to theiero parts of Britain, perhaps the biggest prold14. facing the UK's tourist industry is its centration on London and its failur,e 90 achieve a better regional spread. Rougil'Y er per cent of all tourists visit London and 70 ,livi i cent of those never leave it. And far fr'

bringing prosperity to London, tourism generates precisely those sorts of jobs which can retard prosperity — unskilled and lowpaid, with poor working conditions, long hours and low productivity potential.

3. "It finances services and amenities which enhance the quality of life." Off-hand, I can not think of any service and amenity which enhances the quality of my life and which would not be there but for tourism. I can, on the other hand, think of quite a few services and amenities which do exactly the opposite and are only there because of tourism; the jet that wakes me up at 6.50 a.m. every day in the summer springs immediately to mind. The object of scoring a few quick debating Points at the BTA's expense is to show that there are two sides to the story, but because of the way we deal with tourism in this country the BTA are judge and jury in their OW n case.

Why do I believe that continued growth of tourism at the present rate is not in this Country's best interests? For three main reasons: Firstly, the development of the tourist industry at the rate indicated by the STA in their evidence to the Roskill Com mission means a substantial diversion of land and construction effort to meeting the needs of visitors when I believe those resources should be applied to meeting domestic needs. Secondly, I believe we are approaching the limit of the ability of our tourist destinations principally London — to absorb overseas yisitors, and exceeding these saturation levels Is pointless and anti-social. Thirdly, the jobs

Which a growing tourist industry generates are jobs which are poorly paid, have bad

Working conditions and have little oppor tunity for productivity gains. I believe the People of this country can be offered, and With to have, different and better jobs, and that it is impractical to import workers from Overseas on the scale required to do these jobs

in default. Concerning the foreign exchange argument, I believe it is possible to earn as ITloch net foreign exchange using less resources and without irrevocably changing the acceptable face of the capital.

This is not an elitist anti-growth type arF,Pment: it is simply to state that we do have ‘ne choice to use our resources in one way; or

use them in another. And just because !.ne vocal tourist lobby wishes them to be used ina Particular way, this is no reason why the rest of us should not question their arguments and ask them to jump through their hoops.

Part of our problem is institutional: resPonsibility for advising the Government on

Ma.tters concerning tourism rests with the

British Tourist Authority, whose board is Populated by gentlemen with a psychological

and financial commitment to an expanding

tourist industry. Their staff, understandably, share the same approach and are

Predominantly highly motivated marketing rrl,en geared to selling Britain abroad. Those ‘;':o1 n , like myself, question their activities are ho, as 'denigrators of success.' This Commitment to growth, of itself, would not ratter if there were a counterbalance at a gher level in the Ministry to which the BTA ,ls answerable — the Department of Trade and 1,,ndustry. Unfortunately, far from rectifying .1ne bias, the present arrangement reinforces It.

wThe Department of Trade and Industry views tourism as a source of foreign exchange Which it indeed is — but totally, ignores the ,s.ncial and economic issues raised by a growtourist industry. The DTI is also responhle for civil aviation and airport policy, and as a total commitment to building a third 'ondon airport — as followers of the Stansted aent,t1 Maplin saga will know. Not only would a inange in tourism policy threaten gross dnreign exchange earnings, but it would also rernolish the department's case — already sci,,,,nking very weak — for building Maplin. 'all wonder then that the DTI has both

endorsed and reinforced the BTA view of tourism instead of questioning some of their assumptions.

To overcome these inherent biases, one or two urgent reforms are needed. Firstly, the composition of the BTA board must be changed. By all means keep one or two people who have experience of or earn their living from tourism, as long as they are open-minded; but to secure a balanced view, the contrary arguments must also be heard at the BTA board table if the BTA is to continue to advise the Minister on tourism.

A different BTA board could alter the direction of BTA research and effort. Instead of looking outwards and discovering new ways of persuading more people to come to Britain, it could look inwards at our capacity to absorb tourists. It could examine in detail the experience of other countries who are now suffering from over-development of tourism and learn some lessons. It could seek to rationalise the cumbersome structure of official boards administering tourism — four national boards for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, with regional boards under them. The BTA have admitted there is scope for improvement. In its 1970 annual report it said it "would be idle to deny that such a system presents dangers of duplication and waste."

The second major reform concerns the BTA's sponsor department. Responsibility for tourism should be taken away from the DTI and handed over to the DOE. Through its role as the supreme planning department in the country, it would be able to identify the appropriate role for tourism in this country — by a process I shall describe later; through its role as sponsor of the BTA it could ensure that role was carried out. One would thus have a coherent approach to tourism, based more on the country's ability to persuade them to come. One would also overcome the difficulty inherent in the present approach of having one government department — the

DTI — responsible for tourism demand and another — the DOE.— responsible for supply. A Ministry of Tourism, sometimes advocated in this country, is probably not the best

solution. In those countries which do have one, it tends to aggravate the problems described earlier by giving the tourism lobby statutory powers, and by making integration with other plans even more difficult. The analogy with the previous Ministry of Trans port is a helpful one; when it was a ministry on its own, it builds roads with commendable tenacity of purpose but often with little appreciation of the environmental damage they caused — the Chiswick flyover, for example. Integrating it with the Department of the Environment has had beneficial results by compelling the highway engineers to justify or modify their plans to the environmentalists in the same department. This same process should apply to tourism.

Thirdly, an obligation should be placed on the new top-tier local authorities, which take over control on April I, to identify the role tourism can play in their area. Because they are elected by, and answerable to, local residents, local authorities have tended to ignore the demands made on their areas by visitors. For example, London's target for open space is still expressed as so many acres per thousand residents, although there are now more tourists per year than residents. The first faltering steps in this direction are in fact already being taken by the Greater London Council and are expressed in a cautious document called, 'Tourism in London towards a short-term plan.'

There are however signs that the fundamental question is going to be ducked, as is shown by the following extract: "It is extremely difficult to measure in absolute terms the optimum number of tourists that London can accommodate. Ideas of what

constitutes capacity are complicated by fac

tors which are both objective and subjective, physical and psychological."

This may well be true, but the GLC has on two previous occasions grasped similar sorts of nettles. Nearly a decade ago, the GLC decided that a certain number of offices were 'right' in view of the capital's capacity to absorb people. More recently, it plumped for an optimum figure for the population of London itself.

Those decisions were, I am sure, complicated by all sorts of factors, not least objective, subjective, physical and psychological ones. So far as offices are concerned, the policy is now being implemented through Office Development Permits and while property developers may resent this step, most people would agree that the con cept of trying to balance the creation of jobs — by building offices — with the number of people living in London wanting work, the capacity of the commuting network, and the needs of the other regions was fundamentally right. If one can do if for offices, why on earth not for hotels?

The aggregation of tourist plans by the top-tier local authorities would then give the DOE its starting point for national tourist policy and would be the input to the BTA. This reverses the present arrangement whereby the BTA bring the tourists here and the local authorities are obliged to cater for them whether they want to or not. The marketing ebail would stop wagging the planning dog.

A final development is needed; that is to involve the people of this country more in decisions on tourist policy. They must realise that they have a choice and they must be given the information needed to make that choice. During the debate on London's third airport, there was a chance that they might have got that information. On June 29, 1966, the Conservatives, then in opposition, tabled a motion calling on the Government "To set up an independent committee of inquiry into national airport policy in the context of which a decision on a third London airport could be taken." It was defeated by the Labour Government, the Commission assumed the need for a third airport and was told to identify the place and the date it should open.

If the Roskill Commission had been able to devote its enormous resources to formulating a national airports policy, it would have had to tackle a national tourist policy first. Only by first identifying the pattern and volume of international travel to this country can you then derive a national airports policy. Instead Roskill looked at the essentially secondary issues of time and location and a splendid opportunity was missed. It is a matter of regret that Conservative doubts, as expressed in their motion, were apparently speedily resolved when they assumed office in 1970.

However, it now seems likely that a final decision on Maplin will be 'deferred' or the construction programme 'rephased.' This would give us a breathing space in which to look again at the major issues and to come to a sensible and balanced decision through the processes I have indicated.

Sir George Young is the author of Tourism, Blessing or Blight? and Prospective Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Ealing Acton. He is an Economic Adviser at the Post Office Corporation.