By Simon Hughes - The Tourism Alliance recently invited partners to respond to a snap survey to help assist the process of developing their position on the EU referendum. They recognise the need to develop a view point that best represents the views of their members as we enter what promises to be one of the most important political debates for a generation. Briton's generally still seem to be split on the issue, although some recent polls suggest that more would vote to stay in than leave. The caveat here of course is what a wonderful job the very same pollsters did during the recent general election.
Lots of other organisations have been busy preparing for the fray. For example, researchers at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research estimate that leaving the EU would permanently reduce UK GDP by 2¼ per cent, largely because of reduced foreign direct investment. But they cautioned that "quantifying the impact of withdrawal from the EU on the UK economy is a very difficult task given the range of factors that need to be considered." So consider this. It's June 2018 and to everyone's surprise we voted to take our toys out of Europe and play on our own.
Having replaced David Cameron as leader after the EU referendum fiasco, the PM George Osborne has to publically back his recently recruited EU negotiator Boris Johnson after the failure of the UK to be accepted into the European Economic Area. The stock market falls that result continue the downward trend that followed the announcement that the Corporation of the City of London was relocating to Frankfurt, where all its major finance houses have set up shop in order to maintain their Eurozone businesses.
The national mood gets gloomier as Wimbledon is cancelled due to the new visa regulations established by the UK Border Agency that inadvertently prevent the majority of the tournament players from being granted a visa. A spokesperson from WLTC is fired after suggesting that this was probably a good thing due to the failure of the British strawberry crop which, despite desperate growers launching a massive pick your own promotion, has rotted away due to the absence of seasonal workers from Eastern Europe. The few punnets that made it into M&S were quickly withdrawn following the unedifying spectacle of well off older folk getting into fist fights over them.
Swathes of local festivals and events that normally celebrated summer have been cancelled due to the ongoing local authority funding cuts. The biggest casualty of all is of course Glastonbury, where the unintended consequence of Mendip council abandoning the cultivation and maintenance of grass verges as a cost cutting exercise, led Somerset police to declare that the access roads were no longer safe for traffic to use. AEG announced that, following their sale of both the 02 and Wembley, they were relocating to Dubai.
The immediate Government response to this catalogue of disasters went down badly with the international travel trade press, who fiercely criticised the re-branding of Visit Britain. One commented "Calling it 'Please Visit Britain' seems to be an act of desperation beneath contempt." The one bright spot in this gathering gloom was the mini-boom in training seminars teaching Mandarin and Spanish, as businesses desperately tried to up skill their work forces to tackle new market opportunities in China and South America. This lifted meeting attendance in the UK and took some of the sting out of Park Plaza Group cancelling all their new UK developments.
London fell out of the ICCA rankings for the first time, confirming that the new marketing body London, New York and Partners had been a costly mistake. This was compounded by Visit Scotland declaring UDI just ahead of the Scottish Parliament voting for the very same thing. The new Secretary of State for the DCMS, Fat Boy Slim, urged the event sector to stay calm and carry on. "Carry on packing!" comes the response as Jack Morton Worldwide, GPJ, Vibrant, Ashfield Meetings and Events and DRP Group all reveal that they were relocating in mainland Europe. Dale Parmenter stuns everyone when he says "C'est vrai! Oui, je parle francais comme un Francais comme meme! En avant – par les mauvais chemins, mais tojours en avant."
The EU Referendum – you have to have a view, don't you?
Follow us