Last Thursday 7th December the annual Association for Tourism in Higher
Education (ATHE) conference took place in a windswept Eastbourne. As a social
scientist, I was surprised but delighted to be asked to contribute on a panel with prominent people from the industry on the
fraught subject of the tourism industry after Brexit. The debate was quite
heated at times, but generated a fair bit of light too.
The theme of the two day conference was the coast. Living in
Canterbury in East Kent, I have coast not too far away on 3 sides – Herne Bay
to the North, Ramsgate to the East and Folkestone to the South. All voted to
Leave the EU. It was noted at the conference that many coastal resorts were in economically
depressed Leave voting areas, areas that many feel will be worse off due to
Brexit. Have they changed their mind? There is no evidence that they have. A
recent poll showed that the top constituencies for residents signing a recent petition
calling to leave the EU straight away included Bexhill and Battle, Folkestone and Hythe,
Boston and Skegness, and Clacton. Other polls indicate that only small minority
of the electorate nationally want to overturn Brexit.
Some of these areas, as is the case
with my local favourite Margate in Kent, have been the recipients of
significant amounts of EU money. Why, as one exasperated contributor argued, did
these people bite the hand that feeds them? Why did they vote against their own
interests? A number of contributors suggested that the answer to this is small
minded xenophobia, a claim contradicted by the EU’s own surveys and by the
record number of tourists visiting the UK this Summer.
One of the slogans of the Leave campaign was ‘take back control’.
It’s a line that has been much maligned by Remainers - one panellist referred
to it with an air of exasperated disbelief. But for many Leave voters I know, ‘take back
control’ was a wholly legitimate desire to have a bit more control over the
politicians and policies that affect their lives – a bit more direct democracy,
greater accountability.
I think those with a professional stake in the tourism
industry should take ‘taking back control’ seriously, and in particular consider
how tourism funding and strategy can be subject to the desires, aspirations and
creativity of the residents of our coastal communities post-whatever Brexit we
end up with. All too often destination marketing organisations (DMOs), local
councils, universities, heritage, cultural and trade bodies are involved in a
process of accessing funding that is, frankly, byzantine. On this point there
was some agreement across the Remain / Leave divide in the room. My own direct
experience is limited, but, I think, not untypical: a year’s worth of reports
and meetings to help prepare a bid for European Union funds (via the UK’s Local
Enterprise Partnerships, which replaced the Regional Development Agencies in
2012 and act as gatekeepers for the various EU regional funds) rendered useless
by an unexpected decision to change the criteria for funding.
So how about, in the populist spirit of Brexit, taking back
a bit of control? Why should not DMOs and democratically elected councillors,
along with regional or local trade bodies, cultural organisations and universities,
set their own criteria for funding
based on locally developed strategy? Government could devolve criteria setting
in this way, giving greater ownership and, yes, ‘control’, to local voters and
stakeholders.
It seems to me that far too much time and resources are
taken up by people with a deep knowledge, passion and a feel for the industry
in their resort, region, attraction or
university engaging in game playing in relation to criteria that may or may not
reflect their own perspectives, in order to get their hands on resources.
We talk a lot about local distinctiveness, ‘ownership’ of
projects and accountability. Now would be a good time for central authorities
to cede some authority, to trust and to empower the people who live and breathe
the industry. Maybe that is one form of ‘taking back control’ that could
contribute to creativity and regeneration, and maybe even one we could agree
on.
