THE GREAT WHIGGERY OF TOURISM

Michael Trend questions the

efficiency of an aristocratic quango, the British Tourist Authority

THE TOURIST in Britain today is hideously obvious: that at least is how it seems to many of us keen to enjoy our national patrimony in a way that would have been familiar to our forefathers. Did Ruskin have to jostle with the Japanese in order to catch a glimpse of the paintings in the National Gallery? Did William Words- worth have trouble parking among the noisome 'Eurocoaches' at sublime War- wick Castle? Did you or I, even 20 years ago?

In many places, thankfully, the worst of such problems has been contained due to the ridiculously low satisfac- tion level of the average tourist. That Madame Tussaud's — by defini- tion ersatz culture — is the most popular des- tination for paying over- seas' visitors tells us something. I saw the same thing recently on the battlefield at Cul- loden. This dreadful heath is still one of the most blood-chilling places in the whole of our two kingdoms. The site is much as it must have been in '45, when the Young Pretender led his exhausted troops to their doom and the extinguishment for ever of the real spirit of the Highland Scots at the hands of Butcher Cumberland. Out among the scrub the graves of the clans still have the power to stir many Scotsmen to tears. This was a moving place to visit, but only so because of what the field of Culloden did not contain: masses of tourists. They were there all right, as the crowded 'bus- park' made evident, inside the spacious `Visitor Centre' watching video shows, drinking tea and buying mementoes. It is such a splendidly appointed 'centre' that there was really no need to go outside. And, then, you can never be sure it won't rain, can you? But it is too easy to laugh — or despair at this; and it is as well to remember that we are ourselves all likely to be somebody else's tourists now.

Moreover, there is a very serious side to modern tourism in Britain for it is one of the most promising faces of the future in economic terms. The tourist industry is the single most important part of the 'revolu- tion in the service industries' that the , Conservative government is so very keen' on nowadays. To Ken Livingstone the new work created there may be, as he puts it, just 'Mickey Mouse jobs'; but to the Prime Minister, tourism is a leading force in job creation, the wealth of the future, and in helping to change the general attitude of British people to the 'service ethos'.

The facts are very impressive. For the year which ended on 31 March 1987 spending by overseas visitors in Britain reached some £6.7 billion. This figure is almost equal to that of the previous record- breaking year, and is remarkable because 1986 was made troublesome for tourism by terrorists, the bombing of Libya and the Chernobyl disaster. Something in the re- gion of 14 million overseas visitors came to Britain (this year it will be close to 15 million). Last year British people spent £7.1 billion as tourists in their own country, a 13 per cent increase on the previous year. Tourism in Britain was thus worth nearly £14 billion last year. About 1.4 million full-time jobs exist already in the tourist industry, increasing by some 50,000 a year.

Britain is now the fifth most successful country in the world in terms of earnings • from tourism, behind the USA, Spain, France and Italy. In particular, about half of all Americans who come to Europe come to Britain, and in terms of US dollars spent by tourists more are earned by British businesses than by those in France and Italy com- bined. Twenty-five years ago both these countries each earned more US dollars than Britain.

Is the BTA the engine that has created such success in tourism in Britain or has the great growth in the industry come despite its existence? Having spent some time recently looking into its position I am not persuaded that one could construct a real defence of its position of performance. Of course the BTA itself will not agree. It speaks fluently in the many tongues of the marketing world; its glossy brochures rival anything from the best of the advertising industry. But when you get closer to the BTA you hear a different voice altogether, for this is a genuine 1960s-70s governmen- tal quango. When I asked if I could interview a senior figure about whether a quango really was the best way to oversee such a booming area of business I received the reply, 'I don't think we want to be drawn on this one.' The language of Madison Avenue gave way to the even more familiar tones of Mandarin Whitehall.

I was delighted, however, to have a chance to ask one of my questions at the recent annual press conference. What spe- cific evidence, I queried, was there about the BTA's success in promoting tourism in Britain today? How was it measured? The BTA's Chief Executive, Mr Michael Med- licott, was ready for me. Various measure- ments of effectiveness were being dis- cussed with the Ministry, I was told, and would be brought in soon. This from a body which receives £22 million in grant- in-aid this year, a 6.8 per cent increase on last year. Is it really possible that no assessment is made at the moment — or has been made in the past — about how this public money is spent? Later on, the Countess Spencer, one of the Board pre- sent on this occasion, was kind enough to make a special point of thanking me for my question — which I had fondly hoped had put them all on the ropes. She added that it was an awful shame if people didn't ask questions and it had been `jolly' of me to `pitch in'.

Maybe the Countess had been worried that nobody was going to ask any questions at all. This is not as silly as it may sound: almost nobody takes a serious interest in the affairs of the BTA except the BTA itself. This begins with the Government. Why, one can ask, do the modern Tories still leave a booming modern industry to the landed Whigs of today? For, looking down the 12 regional tourist boards of the English Tourist Board, one finds as Presi- dents five Dukes, one Marquess, one Earl, two Viscounts, two Barons — and a Mrs Jennifer Robson. And the same old faces have been there for years.

In the past, governments of all comple- xions have been reluctant to take tourism seriously. The current minister with special responsibility for tourism is Mr John Lee, who told the House recently that he would concentrate on the 'Three Ss': spotless- ness, service and signposting. Hot water should be installed in all lavatories in public houses and tables in cafes must be cleaned properly. This is stirring stuff. Moreover, the debate of 22 July on tourism in the northern towns seems to have attracted only 12 Conservative members and not a single opposition MP at all.

It was to look into this whole state of affairs that a Select Committee of the House of Commons sat on tourism, report- ing in December 1985. It showed that the government of the day in 1929 had granted £5,000 to the Travel Association of Great Britain, and this continued for 40 years until 1969. Then the whole paraphernalia of the BTA with the English, Scottish and Welsh Tourist Boards, and now, 56 region- al tourist bodies — of greatly varying sizes — was set up. The Select Committee came out in favour of scrapping the present arrangements, saying that to have a three- tier system was not necessary or effective: there was also strong feeling from some parts that the BTA and the ETB should not be under the chairmanship of the same man, Mr Duncan Bluck, even though he assured the committee that he had no trouble 'wearing two hats'. The committee concluded: 'A truly nationwide policy on tourism is, at present, simply non-existent. The reason, ultimately, lies in the present framework of the statutory boards in Great Britain established by the 1969 Act.'

The Government, however, saw fit to ignore the committee's recommendations. This suits the Civil Service Department responsible for tourism — Employment fine. They have only a tiny staff dealing with the entire matter and are, no doubt, happy enough to leave things with the BTA, a body which in the nature of these things they understand how to 'work with'. The department will have surely been very persuasive in sticking up for the status quo.

The BTA has all the traditional charac- teristics of a standard quango, yet even this Conservative government has done little but tinker with it. A few years ago, for instance, in the heady days of 'rationalisa- tion', the 'central services' for the BTA and ETB were merged. This led to a lot of trouble, especially in establishing a new command structure: who was to take orders from whom? Those days have left bitter memories in some parts of the organisation. Working at the BTA is essen- tially a power-building exercise. Over the years the BTA has built up a considerable network of overseas offices — 26 at the last count, costing some £10 million a year. Each of these is well staffed and provided for; and expensive to run. Each also has on the Foreign Office model, even in its terminology — a supporting `desk' in London. They all report annually on the number of seminars they have arranged and pamphlets given out, but there has never been serious questioning as to whether any or all oof them is truely effective. Do we, in any case, need sepa- rate offices in Oslo, Copenhagen and Stockholm? Or Buenos Aires? And what about the one in Atlanta which is tot open to the public'?

As with many other quangos of yester- year the BTA has inspired an often cynical attitude among some of its younger em- ployees. I have spoken to many of them who joined after university and found themselves with reasonably high salaries, excellent prospects for full expenses-paid travel and not a great deal to do. As in the Civil Service, few of them are ever put 'on the spot' — and this in an organisation which is, in essence, a marketing machine. This is partly due to another aspect of the `quango syndrome' that the BTA suffers from: decision by anonymous committee. The recent adoption of a supposed national system of grading hotels by awarding `Crowns' is a good case in point. It is a complicated compromise, difficult to understand, which clearly suits nobody. It has none of the simplicity of the AA or RAC classifications, nor of the perfectly reliable methods that other countries Greece, for instance — insist on for their hotels. The BTA system is in any case not mandatory.

The BTA is also unable to act with any sort of speed or decisiveness, especially in what one might call an 'emergency'. Such was the case when last year huge numbers of American tourists cancelled their trips to Britain. Did the BTA spring into action? No: it was left to British Airways — who stood to lose a lot of money as a major transatlantic carrier — to lead the counter- attack, aided by major London stores like Harrods, and hotels. Through a series of stunts and schemes, most notably the 'Go For It America' campaign, it helped bring an improvement to the dire position. What, by its very nature, the BTA argue, could it have done itself? The argument, of course, seriously backfires on the BTA: perhaps, the next suggestion goes, the `very nature of the BTA' is what is chiefly wrong with it.

There are other unsatisfactory aspects to the BTA. It is, perhaps, not always only a sense of public duty that brings so many aristocrats onto the boards of the tourist authorities. Some of them have, after all, a real personal or family interest in keeping the show on the road. This is particularly sad when one thinks of what has happened in recent years at many of the stately homes of England. The Countess Spencer's sales of valuable heirlooms from Althorp is a case in point. Furthermore the appearance of the Hon. Rocco Forte on the main BTA Board signals another area where the old quango lights start flashing. Without imputing anything improper at all to anyone we must not be surprised that, in circumstances such as they are, large com- panies will take an obvious interest in the affairs of the BTA. In a different context, Ken Warren, the chairman of the 1985 Select Committee said to the House of Commons that his investigations had shown that 'some large enterprises carried enormous muscle in getting loans and aid from tourist authorities to generate new business in tourism'.

Tourism in Britain has huge implications for many areas of government policy. The regeneration of the inner cities, for inst- ance, can owe much to tourism. Manches- ter, Bradford, Glasgow, even Liverpool, have done very well in this respect. There are also important considerations for the creation of new jobs. Just because the tourist industry has done so well in recent years does not necessarily mean that it could not have done substantially better, nor that the future will be as secure as it could be.

It can easily be argued now that priva- tisation, rather than a quango, would be better for the tourist industry as a whole. There is no point in spending public money where it is not really needed, especially if a thriving private sector would do it anyway. Private companies and other concerns that have a vested interest in the business of tourism in Britain already provide substan- tial backing for those central schemes that they believe will be of benefit to them, and there is every reason to believe that if a national tourist authority had itself a vested financial interest in the business then it would be a sharper and much more effective force. At the moment this is far from being the case, and the BTA and its many parts will just slip quietly along — as is the way of the quango — riding con- tentedly on the backs of the taxpayer, without ever seriously having to justify its existence.