Tourism Minister Chris Bryant has reassured the industry that outbound and inbound tourism are ‘equally important’.
Speaking at ABTA’s Travel Matters event on Wednesday (11 June) Chris said: “Inbound and outbound tourism are both equally important to us in the UK. This is not a choice between one and the other.
“In fact, there are lots of areas where you can’t get inbound tourism without an effective outbound tourism offer. The more the two can work together, I think the better.”
He said the Government is planning to produce a tourism strategy by the end of the year.
“We’re working on it now and I very much want to make sure that there are key elements of what you in the outbound tourism industry have to say about and what we need to get right as a country that are a key part of that.”
He told delegates: “We want to work in partnership with you because we want to grow the British economy, but we also want to improve the sense of a nation being at one with itself and I think that you can play a role in that as well.”
ABTA yesterday published a report that said the outbound travel industry could be worth £62 billion a year to the UK economy with Government support.
