TTG Media CEO Daniel Pearce: 'You made a serious mistake, minister'

You made a serious mistake there, minister. It sounds very much like you – or more likely your “people” at the Department for Culture Media & Sport – thought that an interview with the trade media would somehow be a soft touch.

That like the rest of Boris’s ministers (with one or two recent exceptions) you’d continue to avoid Piers Morgan on Good Morning Britain, but you would happily speak to the good old trade press in the belief that we wouldn’t stand in the way of your platitudes to the industry.

But our allegiance isn’t to you, minister.

Our allegiance is to our audience. To the travel agencies, tour operators, cruise lines, airlines and many more travel companies devastated by the ongoing effects of the Covid crisis – as well as to the hundreds and thousands of those who have already lost their jobs.

And for that we make no apologies at all in putting their questions to you, minister, and for persistently looking for answers where none were forthcoming. We make no apologies at all for challenging your opinions and the decisions of government not to offer sector-specific support for travel this year, and for looking to hold a public servant to account.

We refused to let the key questions go:

• Why has the government offered no sector-specific support for travel, when hospitality have had ‘Eat Out To Help Out’?
• Why has the government taken months to act on decisions such as quarantine and airport testing that have taken other countries weeks, if not days?
• Why was there no travel industry representative on the Global Travel Taskforce?
• Given the hugely complex and varied concerns of the travel industry, why isn’t there one government minister championing their cause in Westminster?