In fairness to the British government, at least they are publishing their tourism figures, unlike the Irish government, who are covering theirs up if Ryanair are to be believed. But could they be any worse than the UK figures? In a week when the UK’s two leading outbound operators, Tui and Thomas Cook, made fairly gloomy statements you would have thought Britain’s balance of trade in relation to tourism would be looking up. Marginally so, but the outlook for the inbound sector is almost as grim as it is for the outbound sector.

Year-on-year, visitors to the UK in the 12 months to June 2009 were down 8% from 33.1m to 30.5m. During the same 12 month period the outbound sector spending was down 7% to £33.8 billion, whereas inbound spending was only down 1% to £16.2 billion, meaning the resulting deficit is down from £19.9 billion to £17.6 billion. It seems the British government’s approach to tourism is to let both the inbound and outbound sectors flounder and hope the inbound sector doesn’t do as badly as the outbound.

There seems to be no strategy or accountability at government level for tourism and it appears to have fallen into the government wasteland since 1997. Visitors to the UK have dropped by almost 20% since this government came into power, but do they care? They make pointless gestures like sending Gordon Brown on holiday to the Lake District, but there is no real leadership or vision for the tourism industry.

What did our venerable Minister for Tourism, Barbara Follett, have to say about the figures? Nothing – perhaps she is on holiday. She has been busy though sending a letter to all her constituents justifying her expense claims (£25,000 for security patrols, £1,600 for cleaning windows). She ended the letter saying “I am sorry politics and politicians have let you down so badly”.  Can she write a similar letter to everyone that works in travel?

A rather diverse group of UK travel bigwigs has criticised the UK government’s handling of tourism in a letter to the Prime Minister. It’s hard to disagree with the contents of the letter; they aren’t asking for more money, just better handling of tourism.

Tourism currently sits within the Department for Culture, Media and Sport,  and the letter is quite rightly asking that it be moved to the Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform.

There have been a staggering 8 ministers responsible for tourism in the UK in the last 11 years. The current minister is Barbara Follett (her expenses are only £113,000 for the last year, how admirably frugal), who despite an admittedly international background, has no real background in tourism. Follett is officially the minister for Culture, Creative Industries and Tourism. Note how tourism is tacked on to the end of her title. How does she allocate her time? Monday – go see a film, Tuesday- visit the Knitting Guild Association, Wednesday – tourism.

For anyone in the government, here’s just a few more things you could do:

- Have a minister for Tourism and nothing else. Ideally, someone who has a background in tourism who doesn’t just use the post as a stepping stone to more senior positions

- Build a website that isn’t quite so useless as the current one. A website that tells us what you are doing and how you are spending your £350m budget. Maybe a website that would encourage involvement from those involved in UK tourism (perhaps asking too much)

- Stop harping on about 2012. I know that you’re wasting taxpayer’s money on it, but the effect on tourism will be negligible in the long run and it’s not going to help anyone in 2009

As the department’s own website states: ”The UK’s flourishing tourism industry generates over £85 billion a year for the British economy. It is one of our biggest employers, directly responsible for1.4 million jobs.”  So give it the priority it deserves.