Government policies on education threaten to heighten the recruitment crisis in travel already exacerbated by post-Brexit restrictions on EU workers.
Speaking at Abta’s Travel Matters conference on Wednesday, aviation and maritime minister Baroness Vere called for “evidence of the skills” required by the sector that can’t be found in the UK.
She said: “I can’t tell you how many industries tell me ‘We need foreign workers.’ Tell me why. Present evidence of why and what skills you need that we don’t have.”
Baroness Vere insisted: “We’ve got to look at the domestic workforce first. We can’t make a case to increase immigration if we can’t reassure ourselves that we’ve made every effort to develop workers ourselves.”
She told the conference: “If you’re taking apprentices, school leavers, graduates and you still can’t recruit enough workers, that would be evidence.”
However, John Garside, lecturer in aviation and travel and tourism at Birmingham Metropolitan College, noted the government is poised to close off an important pathway into the sector by ending funding of level 3, or further education, qualifications.
He said: “From 2026, level 3 qualifications will no longer be funded across the board. The government will focus on A-level and T-level courses. But travel and tourism is not among the subjects for T-level.
“Funding for my course will disappear. The courses won’t be there.”
Garside pointed out: “85% of our students completing level 3 in travel and tourism last year went into the industry or on to higher education.”
He added: “There are about 250 colleges in this country and many of them have travel and tourism courses.”
Claire Steiner, Institute of Travel and Tourism director and chair of the ITT education and training committee, described the decision as “a bomb launched into our sector” and said: “There is a fundamental lack of understanding on the part of this government.
“There are 7,500 students studying travel and tourism at the moment. To not have them will be a problem for our industry.”
Garside noted that getting funding approved for replacement qualifications would require the courses “map towards a certain role” when “we want to be able to offer well-rounded qualifications that open up more opportunities”.
He warned the government’s move “could end up increasing skill shortages rather than addressing them”.