Alex Burghart MP has welcomed the launch of the new Tourism Sector Deal, which will benefit the 595 tourism-related businesses in Brentwood and Ongar.
The tourism, hospitality and experience industries play a vital role in boosting the local economy in Brentwood and Ongar. These businesses will now be able to access a new tourism data hub, enabling them to offer an even better service for their visitors.
The Deal – part of the Conservative Government’s modern Industrial Strategy – will help deliver 10,000 new apprenticeships, getting more people involved with the sector and ensuring it continues to go from strength to strength in the future.
The tourism sector is worth £68 billion every year to the UK economy, and employs 1.6 million people across the country. As we leave the EU, we are determined to support the industry and help it to grow. By 2025, there will be 9 million additional visits from people overseas to the UK.
Under the new deal, more than 10,000 people who work in the tourism industry will also benefit from new mentorship schemes, while we’re providing a further £250,000 to improve broadband connectivity in a number of conference centres across the country.
Commenting, Alex said: “Tourism is a hugely important industry in Brentwood and Ongar and I am delighted that the 595 tourism-related businesses here will now be able to receive additional support, through our modern Industrial Strategy. I hope that they are able to use the opportunities of the Sector Deal to attract even more people to the local area, creating more good jobs for the people who live here. I’m proud that so many people want to visit the UK every year, and hope that this deal will help us see even higher visitor numbers.”
ENDS
For more information please contact 0207 219 1613/alex.burghart.mp@parliament.uk
Notes to Editors
- We are launching the Tourism Sector Deal, creating more jobs and giving tourism businesses better access to visitor data, helping them to grow and attract even more people to our shores. The Tourism Sector Deal, part of our modern Industrial Strategy, will deliver 10,000 new apprenticeships for young people in the sector and create a new tourism data hub, allowing industry to access up to the minute data to better attract visitors (BEIS/DCMS, Press Release, 27 June 2019, link).
- We will support the building of 130,000 new hotel rooms across the country, showing the UK is an open and attractive destination for visitors from around the world. In 2018, £6.8 billion was invested in hotels in Britain – a third of all hotel investment in Europe (BEIS/DCMS, Press Release, 27 June 2019, link).
- We are creating up to five new Tourism Zones around the country, to drive up visitor numbers and boost the economies of local communities. We will support the zones by helping them to promote their areas, mentor local businesses and provide digital skills training (BEIS/DCMS, Press Release, 27 June 2019, link).
- The tourism sector employs around 1.6 million people. In 2018, there were around 38 million visits to the UK from overseas residents who spent a total of £23 billion whilst here – an average of £605 per person.
- Tourism contributes £68 billion to the British economy. In 2016, the economic output of the tourism industry in the UK was £68 billion, 6 per cent of total UK economic output (House of Commons Library, Tourism statistics and policy, 2 January 2019, link).
- The number of visits to the UK is at an all-time high. In 2017, there were 39.2 million visits to the UK, up from 29.8 million in 2010 (Visit Britain, 2017 snapshot, accessed 23 April 2019, link).