As we sat down, two welcoming videos played out. The first was from chancellor Rishi Sunak and the second from HRH Prince Charles, both extolling the importance to the UK of the hospitality industry.

Next up was the double act of UK Hospitality’s chair and chief executive. Both lamented the effect of the pandemic on their industry, but focused on the massive amount of lobbying that had been done and how much support they had received from the government.

As I write this, I can see a Guardian article about the chancellor returning to the UK early from California to draw up a rescue package for hospitality firms hit by mass Christmas cancellations owing to Omicron.

"He returns to the Treasury on Friday – a day earlier than he had intended to fly home – under intense pressure to announce emergency financial help," it read.

Stop. Pause. Compare and contrast this with the travel industry. The chair of UK Hospitality summed it up: “Our friends in the travel industry are very noisy, but pretty ineffective."

Ain’t that the truth?

Elman Wall, as an accounting firm specialising in travel, is almost uniquely placed to observe the entire spectrum of the travel, leisure and hospitality industries – inbound, outbound; agents, operators, cruise lines; corporate travel, group travel, domestic wholesale. You name it, we’re involved.

During the early months of the pandemic, we ran Zoominars. We brought together clients, contacts and industry leaders because we knew it was going to be important for the industry to act as one.

We had John de Vial from Abta, Joss Croft from UKinbound and Clive Wratten from the Business Travel Association – our "three wise men"; we had Julia Lo Bue-Said from Advantage, an absolute heroine of the industry; and George Morgan-Grenville from Red Savannah, whose campaigning did more than a plethora of travel associations to get travel heard.

Noisy, but ineffective. The travel industry has worked tirelessly to get support from government, and the associations have made their cases time after time. But in hard terms, what exactly has been achieved?

UK Hospitality, or the industries they represent, have achieved reductions in VAT, Eat Out to Help Out, a 100% business rates holiday and local authority grants for pretty much everyone. They’ve had furlough and Cbils/bounceback loan support too.

‘One industry, one voice’

Here’s the thing. UK Hospitality, in its own words, is the single, authoritative voice of the broader hospitality industry, representing everything from bars, coffee shops, contract catering, hotels, night clubs, attractions, leisure venues, and those who supply the industry. They say "one industry, one voice".

Here’s something else you might not know – it’s pretty new. It was set up in 2018 by a merger of the British Hospitality Association and the Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers.

I love the travel industry. I love the people in it. My clients are very important to me, and we suffer when they suffer. I only want the best for it. And I can clearly see now it has to be led in a different way for UK travel to survive and then thrive. I’ve had my moment of simple and pure clarity; “noisy, but ineffective” has felt like a knock-out punch.

We can see parallel industries have achieved more support from government than travel has. Travel will always be a more fragmented industry than hospitality, but not massively. They have learned to put away the competing interests and speak as one sector. They have been noisy and highly effective. Travel has just been noisy.

The need to create one organisation to speak for the entire travel industry has never been greater. And in my view, is urgently required for the future wellbeing of the sector. Focus on the effectiveness, not the noise. Who of our many association chairs and chief executives will cast aside self-interest and unify the UK travel industry?

I would love in 12 months’ time to be at a travel industry Christmas lunch where I hear the chancellor and the Prince of Wales tell me how important we – travel – are to our country, and how they are supporting the companies and the amazing team members within it.

Jonathan Wall is co-founder of travel accounting firm Elman Wall. You can read his full blog post here.