Priority Issues : ALVA - Association of Leading Visitor Attractions, England, Wales, Scotland, UK

1.History of ALVA. The Association of Leading Visitor Attractions (ALVA) held its inaugural meeting on 10 July 1989 and was incorporated as a Company Limited By Guarantee with 8 full members on 2 April 1990.

By 1994 ALVA had 22 members representing over 60 million visits a year operating from offices at Westminster Palace Gardens, London SW1.

During 1996 ALVA launched its pioneering Benchmarking Surveys for financial data and quality assurance and also a Joint Marketing initiative.

In 1999 His Royal Highness The Duke of York became President of ALVA and ALVA formally celebrated its 10th Anniversary with a Reception attended by its members who by now spoke for some 90 million visits per annum.

In 2000 ALVA launched its Mystery Guest Scheme involving 190 reciprocal inspection visits between participating members and in January 2001 it launched a monthly Market Conditions Survey.

In 2001 ALVA played the lead role in facilitating the formation of the Tourism Alliance and is represented on its Board.

In 2003 ALVA set in motion the planning for the First National Conference of Visitor Attractions which was held in October 2004.

2.Key Tourism Facts (based on data for 2005).

· Tourism is worth £85bn to the United Kingdom economy - some 5% of GDP

· It supports at least 2.1m jobs, many in SMEs, in the UK – 7.7% of Britain's total workforce.

· Balance of Payments deficit on the tourism account is some £-19 bn.

· The Treasury receives in excess of £12bn in tax from the Tourism Industry every year.

3.Priority Issues List.

Following the formation of the Tourism Alliance there is now an industry-wide agreed list of priority issues. Attached is a precis of those that are particularly relevant to the Visitor Attractions sector. Members are asked to represent these issues to decision makers at every opportunity in order to improve the well being of the British Tourism Industry, and thus the Visitor Attractions sector, over time.

ALVA remains concerned that the fall in the UK's market share is partly attributable to a fall in its price competitiveness relative to other countries. This we contend is to some degree due to the high levels of taxation.

We support the Government's overall stance that taxation where possible should be imposed on the end-user rather than through direct central taxation. However, we note that the impact of the VAT regime, combined with rising employment costs, further adds to the distortion and competitive pressures on the industry.

The EC 6th VAT Directive sets down as one of its goals the harmonisation of VAT rates across the European Union. When achieved this will decrease distortions within the EU's tourism markets and should encourage fairer competition. However, this goal will take time to achieve. In the meantime, the majority of member state governments have chosen to apply differing rates to tourism services.

The VAT rate applied to tourism services in the UK is one of the highest in the whole EU. Research by VisitBritain in the 1990s and more recently by the British Association of Leisure Parks, Piers and Attractions (BALPPA) has shown that European states with higher rates of VAT on visitor accommodation experience significantly slower growth in their international tourism receipts than those that levy a lower rate.

The UK's high rate disadvantages its tourism businesses relative to most of our EU competitors. ALVA calls for a VAT reduction on, in the first instance, tourist accommodation to help boost price competitiveness (assuming no changes in other EU destinations).

Another area of concern relates to the issue of VAT on property refurbishment in general and on repairs to historic properties in particular. We support the idea of reducing the rate to 5% to decrease the differential between the refurbishment of older properties and new buildings, and between VAT-registered and unregistered businesses.

We also see an opportunity to reduce the rate of VAT on listed building repairs. Two-thirds of Britain's heritage is in private ownership; they contribute £1.2bn to the national economy. As well as VAT reform, the provision of fiscal relief for the maintenance of historic properties that provide public access would help stimulate much needed investment and preserve the heritage tourism resource.

Low skilled employees receive less training than highly skilled employees and many businesses, particularly small and micro businesses are reluctant to train, citing as chief constraints time, costs and the impact on the remaining staff. The result is that the industry lacks an on-going source of well-trained staff. Those businesses that do wish to invest in their staff through training continue to find that many of their competitors prefer simply to poach their staff instead.

ALVA supports the call by the Tourism Alliance, the CBI and the TUC for well-targeted tax credits to provide financial incentives to help boost training and retention. Tax credits should be available:

· for employers providing support for employees to achieve their first vocational level 2 qualification, and

Tourism, hospitality and leisure as a whole wish to help enhance the employability of those with low levels of qualifications.The sector is well placed to help the Government deliver on its social inclusion agenda.

The industry responded positively to the Government's call to create a Sector Skills Council for Hospitality, Leisure, Travel and Tourism. To this end People 1st has been formed to provide a central, over-arching view of workforce needs throughout the UK and to reduce the skills gap and shortages in the industry and to increase productivity and workforce development.

The Grant-in-Aid to VisitBritain has not increased for the past ten years, which means, of course, a year-on-year cut. In addition, from April 2003 VisitBritain has had responsibility for the development and marketing of England to the British. The evidence generated by the Million Visitor Campaign and the early results from the England Marketing initiatives demonstrated convincingly that investment in tourism marketing is effective and brings a direct return to the Treasury and UK plc. ALVA looks to the Government to re-invest taxpayers money in the institutions it has created and to recognise that backing winners, such as tourism, is a wise decision. ALVA will work with and support VisitBritain and it looks to the government to do the same.

Public services in general have become noticeably inadequate. Both citizens and visitors have a right to expect and enjoy a safe and clean environment. London is of particular concern.

Central and local government need to ensure that adequate resources are allocated to these core, essential services. Local authorities play a key strategic and operational role in maintaining a high quality physical environment. They need to be adequately resourced to ensure that this responsibility is rigorously executed. The quality of the public realm is an important issue that must be addressed.

Yet with so many competing priorities, it is often the public space and amenities so important to tourists that are the first to face the cuts. Local tourism businesses are right to protest when yet another Public Convenience is closed through lack of public funding.

Furthermore, ALVA supports additional funding for the work of the Homelessness Directorate to address social and environmental blights of begging, vagrancy and homeless street sleepers. This battle has not yet been won.

London has a clear 'gateway' role for England - stipulated in the Greater London Act. It also has a 'gateway marketing and packaging' relationship with Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. For such key reasons, London needs adequate resourcing through strong investment in the necessary infrastructures as the capital destination.

The capital is overwhelmingly the starting point for many tourism routeways that link London to the UK Regions and Nations. The relationship that London has with the regions must be reciprocal with investment flowing out to the regions as well as back to the capital. This relationship needs to be developed further, and kept under constant review. The overall London economy has been growing faster than the rest of the UK for most of the past 17 years. The result is that London currently makes a net contribution to the Exchequer of at least £20bn per annum.

Particularly where tourism is concerned, London is a national asset and a 'flagship' product of the UK. As such its economy, infrastructure, environment, societal well-being and cultural life are all inter-linked and relevant to the overall tourism experience of its visitors. Increasingly 'traditional' tourism blurs into leisure; both are essential in maintaining the city's vibrancy.

ALVA welcomes all proposals to advance time in England and Wales by one hour throughout the year (GMT + 1 hour in winter; GMT + 2 hours in summer). This measure would have considerable benefits for all industry, including tourism. As the extra hour of ‘accessible’ daylight would be felt most of all in the spring and autumn months, it would also have a major impact on road safety and give the opportunity to extend the tourists season. It is estimated that this could bring up to £2bn additional revenue to tourism.