Tourism

Time to reduce VAT

Ministers talk a good talk. When I recently met John Penrose, the tourism minister, he stressed the huge economic opportunity of his brief. “Our heritage offer is world class, we are going to grow our share of world tourism.” My sceptical response was probably too obvious for he proceeded to point out that David Cameron was the first prime minister in living memory to have talked about the importance of tourism in his first 100 days of government.

Talk is cheap, change is much more difficult. Britain’s third- highest export earner is politically invisible and has been for decades. That is why it bizarrely doesn’t even get a mention in the title of its sponsoring department for Culture, Media and Sport [DCMS].  That is why we have had nine different junior tourism ministers in the past 14 years, eight of them provided by the last Labour government. And that is why the tourism budget is being cut by nearly a third despite an estimated 30-1 pay-back for each pound invested.

None of this makes sense in a year of the Royal Wedding, and with the Olympics coming up.  There is little wrong with the product; this country has fantastic natural assets with a world-wide appeal,  but there is a lot wrong with the marketing. Tourism’s lack of political clout has contributed to a 40% decline in Britain’s share of the world holiday market in the past 30 years, and an annual balance of payments deficit of nearly £20 billion. It is unfair to blame John Penrose for the mess he has inherited. But I fear I did not hear anything from him to persuade me that anything much is going to change.

The key reform that needs to be taken is for tourism to be taken out of the DCMS and put under the auspices of the Department for Business.  As Britain’s fifth-largest industry, employing no less than one in ten of the workforce and contributing £115 billion annually to the economy, it is too important an asset to be neglected. Tourism should be headed by at least a minister of state with the right to attend Cabinet meetings. To make sure he knows what he is talkign about, he should be advised by a tourism council which would include some of Britain’s smartest businessmen.

One issue that needs urgent discussion is VAT. The industry  is severely handicapped by having the second-highest rate in Europe on hotel services.  Many European countries, including France, Portugal, and the Netherlands, levy VAT on hotels at barely a third of our rate.  This month, Ireland reduced VAT on tourism to half the Briitish rate. We could easily do something similar: there might not even be a loss of revenue, because tourism numbers would increase.

A report prepared for Visit Britain last year predicted that tourism could grow by 60% contributing £188 billion to the economy by 2020. But for that to happen, the government will have to take it seriously. And that needs more than words, it needs action.
    

Adam Raphael

Special offers

To the wilds

Summer is the season for a spot of exploring. There are lots of special offers this month which will take you some out-of-the-way places with a taste of adventure thrown in.

Fancy a trip on an Irish clinker boat from which you can explore one of the 365 deserted islands of Lough Corrib. Currarevagh House at Oughterad, Co. Galway, is offering two nights B&B with afternoon tea each day and dinner on one evening of 205 Euros per person. If you don’t like boats, they will give you a bottle of wine instead. First-time visitors enjoyed 'the easy charm, the welcoming atmosphere, and the beauty of the setting.

The Cross at Kingussie is offering dinner and bed and breakfast for £105 to GHG readers. You can explore the wilds of the Cairngorm National Park, or if you prefer indulge yourself and try David Young’s delicious sea trout and Eyemouth crab, and sample one of the many whiskies on hand. The award-winning wine list has many half bottles and wines by the glass.

The Felin Fach Griffin in Powys, on the road linking the Brecon Beacons and the Black Mountains, has a longstay offer of four nights from £625 per couple which includes dinner, bed and breakfast each night. An old inn, it is run as a dining pub by brothers Charles and Edmund Inkin. Popular with locals, it has an informal youthful atmosphere. Family prices are also available with young children staying for free.

La Sablonnie on Sark, personally run by the splendid Elizabeth Perrée, has gift vouchers that can be purchased for any monetary value. Choose anything from a delicious luncheon, afternoon tea, dinner, an overnight stay or a champagne celebration with canapés. You can alsoenjoy an amble on a horse-drawn cart.

More special offers are below, and there are many more are on our Special Offers page.

Hotels, inns and B&Bs with a special offer (click and see)

Send in a Review

Win a free night!

This month's prize is a free night dinner and breakfast for two at Mount Vernon which won a César award this year as Irish Heritage Hotel of the Year. An 18th-century villa, it has been beautifully restored by Mark Helmore and Ally Raftery, who run it as a private country house and home. A GHG inspector described it as "excellent."

All you have to do to win this splendid prize is to submit a review which catches the eye of our editorial team for its wit and insight. We welcome new reports on hotels that have never been in the Guide or have been dropped. The winner of last month's prize, dinner, a free night and breakfast for two at Killiecrankie House, Perthshire, is Sara Price from St Albans. A white dower house in enchanting gardens at the entrance to the Pass of Killiecrankie, it is admirably run by its owner, Henrietta Fergusson. She won a César award this year as Scottish hotel of the year.

Hotel Tales

Basil Fawlty

1. Not quite a Basil Fawlty item – oh, I don’t know, perhaps it is: the intrusive and mindless incantation which occurs up and down the country about 3 ½ minutes after the delivery of each course whether at breakfast, lunch or dinner: “Is everything OK for you?”. This is usually recited as if from a tape-recorded message, without any regard for what is happening at the table and with no respect for the flow of conversation. I suspect it is a routine which has developed as a result of some received best practice, when it is in fact quite the opposite.

2. We asked for our luggage to be brought from the car. A kitchen porter dumped it on the hall floor. Our room on the third floor must have been intended for servants long ago and was furnished as though it still was. ‘Shabby’ was the word that sprang to mind. The food was adequate but the waitress seemed to be labouring under a great sadness.
   
   
3. We were struck by the muddled service in the restaurant, offered by perfectly pleasant but gauche young staff. They were busy; it was all a bit hit and miss. Travelling abroad highlights just how poor and unprofessional levels of service can be in England. The young, perhaps too young, wine waiter and his chummy ‘Can I top you up now?’ was jarring, sometimes overfamiliar, sometimes nervously incompetent. I felt that these young things should be airlifted to France or Switzerland and shown how to do it, because they had no clue.

         

BUY tHE gUIDE

The 2011 Guide

The 2011 print edition of the Good Hotel Guide to Great Britain and Ireland makes a great present. Discount vouchers worth a total of £150 are included with each copy. They enable a 25% saving off the normal B&B price at participating hotels. A copy of the Guide costs £18 (including £3 p&p), compared to a retail price of £20. If you wish to buy a copy, click here or write to: The Good Hotel Guide, 50 Addison Avenue, London W11 4QP.

The new Good Hotel Guide gift voucher scheme, an ideal birthday or wedding present, is attracting lots of interest. For more details, write to: editor@goodhotelguide.com.

The GHG Iphone app is also available from Apple's Itune store. It costs £2.99 in the UK, $4.99 in the USA. An E-book version of the Guide is available on Kindle price at £8 in the Uk or $13 in the USA.

The Good Hotel Guide, founded 32 years ago, is totally independent. It receives no payments, no hospitality and no advertising from hotels selected for an entry in the printed edition. Hotels pay to be on the GHG website, but only those hotels which have an entry in the printed Guide are eligible. Selected hotels are recommended by readers, backed where necessary by an anonymous inspection. The British edition of the Guide is published each autumn. Adam and Caroline Raphael, who edit the Guide, are award-winning journalists. Caroline, a former BBC researcher and a travel writer, is editor-in-chief. She has worked on the Guide for more than 30 years. Adam, who previously worked for the Guardian, the Observer, the BBC and the Economist, is the Guide's marketing director. Desmond Balmer, formerly travel editor of the Observer, is editor of the British guide. The Guide specialises in small owner-managed hotels, inns and B&Bs in England, Scotland, Wales, the Channel Islands and Ireland. It includes budget B&Bs, good value hotels as well as grand country houses and chic city hotels, all offering value for money in their price.range.