Five asks for a sector in managed survival

The visitor economy is worth £147 billion to the UK, supports 2.4 million jobs and generates £52 billion in tax revenues every year.

 

Yet domestic overnight tourism fell 5% in 2025, coastal destinations are down 11%, and hospitality business confidence sits at just 25%.

 

The UK ranks 113th out of 119 countries for price competitiveness on the World Economic Forum’s Travel and Tourism Development Index.

 

The sector does not feel in recovery. It feels in managed survival.

 

That is the backdrop to the Tourism Alliance’s submission to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee’s tourism inquiry on behalf of more than 60 member organisations.

 

We have set out five headline asks, and everyone affects the businesses bringing visitors to Britain and the trade selling them.

 

1. Cut VAT on accommodation and hospitality to 10%

 

The single biggest reform government could make. The UK applies a 20% VAT rate against an EU average of 9%. 

 

France, Spain and Italy apply 10% to hotel accommodation; Germany applies 7%. We are competing with Paris, Barcelona and Rome for the same leisure bookings, the same group business and the same conference and exhibition contracts, from a structurally higher cost base. 

 

We are calling for 10%: permanent, legislated and aligned with competitor destinations.

 

The impact reaches well beyond the room rate. Every restaurant meal, every excursion, every attraction admission carries 20%, so the total cost of a UK trip looks materially uncompetitive against the package an equivalent Mediterranean or continental destination can offer.

 

In 2024, 94.6 million UK residents took overseas trips, up from 86.2 million. Outbound is doing its job, but the gap in domestic and inbound competitiveness is one the trade selling Britain cannot keep absorbing.

 

2. Do not introduce an England overnight visitor levy

 

The UK is already an expensive destination, and any new overnight levy would add further cost at a time when contracted rates and package pricing are under pressure. 

 

For inbound operators with rates locked 12 to 18 months ahead, a levy introduced mid-contract is a margin event, not a marketing one. Experience elsewhere shows such levies are difficult to unwind once introduced.

 

Recent written Parliamentary answers suggest the government is considering levy-enabling powers without first publishing a full assessment of the likely effects on employment, regional growth, VAT receipts, tourism demand or its own 50 million inbound visitors target. That underlines the need for a more robust evidence base.

 

Before any levy proceeds, government must reduce accommodation VAT, publish the Strategy (see below), commission an independent economic and social impact assessment at national and destination level, and put a statutory hypothecation framework in law so any revenue is ring-fenced for tourism infrastructure and promotion.

 

3. Publish the National Visitor Economy Strategy

 

The strategy has been promised for some time. When it arrives, it needs measurable targets for arrivals, spend, employment and skills, with named delivery bodies, clear timelines, and dedicated strands on regional dispersal, ‘screen’ (film location) tourism, coastal communities, digital transformation and regenerative tourism.

 

Regional dispersal matters, in particular. VisitBritain research found that 57% of international visitors cannot imagine what there is in the UK outside London. 

 

That is both a destination development gap and a trade distribution problem, and the strategy must address it through product, packaging and trade channel support, not marketing alone. 

 

The strategy also needs a formal Tourism Impact Assessment requirement. No department should be able to take decisions that materially affect the sector (visa policy, APD, planning, employment law, business rates) without consulting VisitBritain and DCMS. Tourism is too often treated as an afterthought in the policy areas that shape it most.

 

4. Properly fund VisitBritain, VisitEngland and the LVEP* network

VisitBritain delivers £20 of additional visitor spending for every £1 of public investment. Its Starring GREAT Britain campaign generated an estimated £217 million in visitor spending in its first six months. 

 

Its Business Events Growth Programme delivered a 35:1 return between 2018 and 2025 and £60.1 million in direct economic benefit, with funding now under threat at the very moment the UK should be doubling down on a sector aligned to the Industrial Strategy.

 

VisitBritain’s core grant has not kept pace with inflation, and the Local Visitor Economy Partnership network that delivers regional growth on the ground remains structurally underpowered. 

 

A sustained increase in funding would be one of the simplest, fastest and highest-return interventions government could make. The trade benefits when VisitBritain can market the UK at scale internationally and feels the cost when it cannot.

5. Invest in the people who make tourism work

 

The sector employs 2.4 million people, and workforce pressure is acute. The April 2025 increases in employer National Insurance and the National Minimum Wage pushed up costs sharply, and the government’s employment reforms add further compliance burdens on the SMEs that make up most of the supply side. 

 

The points-based immigration system is poorly suited to seasonal demand and entry-level roles. The cumulative effect feeds through to service standards and the trade’s ability to sell Britain credibly.

 

We need a dedicated seasonal workers’ scheme, reform of shortage occupation provisions, ring-fenced skills investment with more flexible use of the Apprenticeship Levy by smaller operators, and constructive engagement on Employment Rights Act implementation.

 

What comes next?

 

The Committee’s inquiry is a chance for the visitor economy to be heard at scale. The Tourism Alliance will keep making these arguments in Parliament, with Whitehall, and through our working groups on taxation, visa and border access, workforce and communications.

Want to add your voice? Talk to your trade body, write to your MP and engage with the inquiry directly. Tourism is not a nice-to-have. It is economic infrastructure, and it is time government treated it that way.

Eddy Leviten is executive director of the Tourism Alliance, the UK tourism industry coalition representing more than 60 organisations across the visitor economy

*Local Visitor Economy Partnership