Report boosts holiday season hopes

Wednesday 30th June 2010
A new report has confirmed that the traditional British seaside holiday is thriving – boosted by the recent growth of the ‘staycation’.

Great Yarmouth's tourism officer Alan Carr shared the report’s optimism and said he was confident of another good summer for the industry despite a relatively quiet start to the season, prompted by various factors including the World Cup.

He said they calculated that tourism contributes £480m to Yarmouth's economy with the town attracting around five million visitors a year. The sector sustained jobs for 30% of the workforce.

The new report by Sheffield Hallam University said that employment in the sector had actually grown by 1% a year since the 1990s.

And it found that the seaside tourism industry nationally continues to employ as many people as the whole of the telecommunications sector, and more than the motor, aerospace, pharmaceuticals and steel industries.

Professor Steve Fothergill, from Sheffield Hallam's centre for regional economic and social research, who led the team, said: “Leisure and tourism is a growing market. What our figures show is that even in the face of stiff competition from holidays abroad, Britain's seaside towns have been able to retain and even expand much of their core business.

“The new government should make every effort to ensure the industry delivers its full potential in the coming years.”

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