A rally outside parliament last summer during the pandemic saw more than 800 people and 52 MPs attend, with Abta and UKinbound dubbing the event “one of the biggest political events in the travel industry’s history”.
In a joint statement, Abta chief executive Mark Tanzer and UKinbound chief executive Joss Croft said: “Abta and UKinbound were among the organisations leading the planning and delivery of the day’s activity which saw, in the space of two weeks, political demonstrations organised across the UK to promote the value of our industry and to urge the government to adopt a more permissive approach to international travel policy.”
They added: “While much has changed over the last 12 months, the anniversary is a good opportunity to take a moment to reflect on the importance of the outbound and inbound industries working together.
“Our members and their customers may be different… but there is a strong interdependence and interaction between all parts of the UK’s tourism mix; inbound, outbound and domestic.
“We have many shared policy interests, for example, around ensuring competitive taxes and much of the physical infrastructure that supports all parts of UK tourism is the same – travellers use the same airlines, airports, ports, roads and tunnels.”
The two said Brexit was a good example of the need for collaboration:
“Labour mobility is an issue we have actively been working on, advocating the extension of the UK’s Youth Mobility Scheme as something that would have mutual benefits – enabling outbound businesses to more easily get UK national staff into destinations to support UK tourists overseas, while also offering access to a wider labour pool, including workers with vital language skills for the inbound and domestic tourism industry here in the UK.”
They said demonstrating tourism’s value and its role as a major employer, “will be an ongoing task”.
“While we won’t always agree on everything or have all the same priorities, the members of Abta and UKinbound have plenty of shared interests and joint working between our organisations has never been more important. We’re committed to spreading the message that travel and tourism is a powerful force for good in the world.”
