I was honoured and delighted to be invited to deliver the ninth Cornwall Lecture: honoured because this lecture follows a line of stimulating lectures by leading authorities such as Sir Nicholas Grimshaw, Adair Turner, Sir Eddie George and Jonathon Porritt; and delighted because it gives me the opportunity to talk about a subject that is close to my heart – the future of tourism in Cornwall.
While it is, of course, a key part of my job to talk about tourism-related topics, I’ve been visiting Cornwall for as long as I can remember – and still come here five or six times a year. So my visit to the fine city of Truro tonight, and my return to Cornwall, is both business and pleasure.
Before going any further, I would like to thank the sponsors of tonight’s event: the Cornwall Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty Partnership; Cornwall Enterprise ; Cornwall Wildlife Trust; The Environment Agency; First Great Western; the National Trust; South West Regional Development Agency; South West Tourism; St. Austell Brewery and Stephens & Scown Solicitors.
I’d like to discuss Cornwall’s tourism successes, challenges and solutions tonight, and its future, but first, perhaps I could say a few words on why I like Cornwall so much – and, importantly, as much now as ever.
My family spent a wonderful fortnight in Cornwall this summer, and I’m pleased to say that we found the real Cornwall, as we always do. From what we saw, Cornwall and Cornish tourism are alive and well. And, while some of the places we visited were certainly busy, Cornwall is far from ‘paradise lost’.
Cornwall isn’t perfect – where is anyway? People who look for perfection usually end up frustrated and unhappy.
Cornwall is amazing though. It charms, delights and refreshes me every time. To risk paraphrasing Shakespeare, Cornwall is a precious stone set in the silver sea, another Eden, a demi-paradise!
Nothing I say can do justice to Cornwall’s scenic splendour or unique character, its welcoming people, the clean, uplifting air, the sea in all its moods, and so on. However, my many personal favourites include the stunning north Cornish sections of the South West Coast Path, the Camel Trail and the Lost Gardens of Heligan.
No trip to Cornwall is complete without sampling the excellent food and drink and here my favourites include locally produced cheeses, John Dory fish and Tinners, Hicks and Sharps beers.
Look in most holiday brochures, anywhere in the world, and a region or country will often describe itself as a ‘land of contrasts’. Well, some are and some aren’t, but Cornwall really is. It’s spectacularly varied – you can travel from the dramatic north coast, to the drowned valleys and peaceful subtropical gardens of the south in as little as 25 minutes.
Cornwall offers more than topographical contrast: it’s also invigorating and relaxing, a world apart and homely. For my family, millions of other visitors and the people of Cornwall, it’s exceptional – a special place indeed.
To return to tonight’s topic, how can visitors contribute to the prosperity of Cornwall without destroying the things they have come to see? Is Cornwall over-exploiting its assets, are sheer numbers spoiling Cornwall and are we – organisations such as VisitBritain – fuelling ever-increasing demand?
I think not. We are thinking strategically and managing our marketing to focus, not on increasing visitor numbers in the summer, but capitalising on the spare capacity during the shoulder months to attract higher spending visitors and encouraging attractions and operators to remain open all year round.
Like everywhere else, Cornwall is changing and, like everywhere else, the pace of change is increasing. I strongly believe that most of the changes here are for the better.
When I visited Cornwall in the early 1980s, I remember that towns such as Falmouth, Newquay and Padstow were not the thriving places they are today. Yes, I still had enjoyable holidays, but there wasn’t the variety there is now, particularly in terms of attractions and eating out.
Incidentally, I know that another negative feature of the 1980s, the so-called ‘brain drain’ from Cornwall, is now moving into reverse as talented people look increasingly to combine their careers with a high quality of life. This major turnaround has, of course, been helped by modern information and communications technology (ICT), which I’ll mention shortly.
Like anywhere else, the faster pace of change in Cornwall can be unsettling for some – and usually brings fresh challenges. Stand still though, as they say, and you fall behind.
Some people might hark back to the golden days of steam-hauled summer Saturday additional trains to Newquay, of Ford Anglias tootling around the Lizard…and of ginger beer all round. They can easily overlook past problems such as epic, overnight crawls on long, single-carriageway stretches of the A30 and A38 through the West Country.
While some people might not accept that times have changed, most of us know they have. As the novelist Peter de Vries said, “Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be!”
I would say thank goodness times have changed because surely none of us would really want a Cornwall stuck in time – an anachronism, a fading beauty that is stared at, and even laughed at, by a world that has moved on.
As I see it, Cornwall’s main tourism-related challenge today is managing success. As problems go, it’s better than most.
Let’s remember that specific challenges faced by Cornwall and other top tourist destinations (such as the Côte d’Azur, Venice and the Spanish Costas) are often variations of a theme. Whether it’s all-out economic growth versus the environment, over-development versus sustainable development or the fast buck versus a longer-term approach, we’ve seen most of it before.
Cornwall’s tourism industry has recorded a second strong year of growth after the foot-and-mouth crisis of 2001. If there was a single positive side to this horrible disease, it reminded us how important tourism is to Cornwall.
International terrorism struck in 2001 too, which has been one factor in the resurgence of domestic tourism. ‘Pushed’ by negative events and drawn by positive changes at home, more Britons are rediscovering their own country.
Among other recent changes we’re seeing are more last-minute bookings: more winter, spring and autumn short-breaks; and more themed and other niche holidays centred on industrial archaeology, country gardens, walking, birdwatching, movie locations, diving and much else besides.
But, managing change brings responsibility. Tourism needs to embrace change and capitalise on the opportunity that the Objective One Programme has brought, to make a “step change” in the way tourism is managed and organised. There needs to be a fundamental change in attitude within tourism that helps people to move forward positively for the benefit of Cornwall.
Objective One has enabled a real private/public sector partnership in the form of the Cornwall Tourism Forum to drive tourism in the future. There is an opportunity to develop this dynamic demand led industry to grow the supply side thereby developing an inclusive and sustainable economy for the whole of the county.
If all this growth is to be sustainable, we must also protect Cornwall’s environment for the benefit of the local community and visitors alike so that visitors will want to come back again and again. The tourism industry needs repeat business, just like any other.
A growing tourism industry can bring environmental problems, just as, say, a manufacturing plant can pollute the air. As with life itself, the answer is to minimise problems and maximise benefits.
While I’m on the subject of manufacturing, I’ve heard it said that we should ignore tourism and concentrate on creating ‘real’ manufacturing jobs instead – or ‘real’ jobs in some other industry that has no competition and can guarantee jobs for life.
In response, I would argue that tourism jobs are ‘real’, manufacturing also has its fair share of problems, and where are these other new industries that no-one else has thought of?
Certainly, traditional Cornish industries such as farming and fishing will not provide the new jobs we need.
In today’s consumer society, we’ve become used to ever-increasing choice. On the supply side though, we must not be complacent as we don’t have as many options as we might like, especially with the growing competition from India, China and, well, the whole world.
In the Cornwall Lecture of five years ago, CBI Director Adair Turner talked about how people are spending increasing proportions of their rising incomes on services, not goods: more holidays, healthcare and restaurant meals, he said – not another fridge. He also said how people are demanding higher quality, so ‘added value’ now lies in R&D, design, name, service, differentiation, customisation and speed to market.
This is exactly what needs to happen in tourism, the biggest service industry of them all.
There’ll always be someone who can produce goods or provide services for less, so, like the rest of Britain, Cornwall has to offer more. I’ll return to the subject of quality later.
As an aside, Adair Turner also talked about the shift to the knowledge-based economy and growth of ICT. It’s amazing to think that even when he spoke here in 1998, businesses were only starting to use e-mail, the Internet and e-commerce. Since then, one wobble apart, ICT has grown apace.
With the support of Objective One funding Cornwall’s ICT sector has expanded beyond recognition. But more importantly, new technology has revolutionised people’s thinking. Even the humble e-mail shows that distance doesn’t matter much any more, if at all.
Even in tourism, where people travel, improved transport is reducing the importance of distance. Low-cost airlines have made taking a flight as easy, and sometimes as cheap, as taking a bus.
There are no easy answers, whatever industry you care to mention. Compared with the rest of Britain, the South West has lower than average unemployment, a relatively skilled workforce, high levels of new business start-ups and other positive attributes – but regional disparities and structural problems remain.
Given these difficulties, it’s good to know that the tourism industry is still growing and that, in Cornwall, more school leavers start their careers in tourism than any other industry.
We don’t live in an ideal world and we don’t have that many options. We should therefore build on tourism’s benefits, reconcile any conflicting needs and wishes, and work together to solve the problems that beset any expanding industry.
For anyone who might still think of tourism as a lightweight industry, full of fly-by-night operators, let’s look at the figures.
Nationally, tourism is worth £76 billion a year, accounts for 4.5% of GDP and supports 1.8 million jobs.
At VisitBritain, we want the UK to be earning £100 billion a year from tourism by 2010. We need to – the UK currently has a £15 billion tourism deficit.
Tourism is the world’s largest industry. The World Tourism Organisation estimates that international tourism alone is worth £285 billion a year. The World Travel & Tourism Council expects travel and tourism to employ almost 250 million people by 2013.
Tourism boosts the economy, creates and sustains jobs, helps to diversify rural areas and regenerate urban areas, increases knowledge and awareness of destinations and changes perceptions. It broadens the mind and makes a refreshing and enjoyable change from everyday life. In short, holidays are good for us!
Importantly, tourism thrives in attractive environments – it’s very much in our interest that a destination looks good. Regeneration projects often create a virtuous cycle of increased visitor numbers, income and civic pride.
Tourism can open doors. I’ve heard it said that because Cornwall is perceived as a holiday destination, potential inward investors won’t take it seriously, let alone come here. I don’t agree: many people have taken a holiday somewhere and then decided to invest there. A place that people want to visit is, like Cornwall, usually a good place to live and work too.
Tourism, particularly year-round tourism, can also help to sustain shops, public transport, restaurants and other local facilities. This will contribute to the economic and social objectives of sustainable tourism.
In 2002, 24.1 million overseas visitors spent £11.7 billion in Britain – up 4% on 2001 – making us the world’s seventh most popular tourist destination.
At VisitBritain, we are working hard to generate additional tourism revenue throughout Britain and throughout the year. As one of our targets, we want at least 59% of overseas visitors’ expenditure to be outside London – or 10% more than at present.
Also in 2002, UK residents took 134.9 million trips within England, generating £20.8 billion. They spent more of their money here in the South West – £3.9 billion – than anywhere else. VisitBritain is working equally hard to increase the value of this domestic market by encouraging British residents to take additional and/or longer breaks in England.
Visitors of all kinds spent a total of £5.3 billion in the South West in 2002, of which £1.6 billion was spent in Cornwall. If you look at direct spending, plus indirect and induced expenditure, these figures are higher still.
It’s worth noting that tourism employment in the South West has increased by 16.3% since 2000/01 – or almost six times as fast as total employment.
The spending of 28 million annual visitors to Cornwall supports some 46,000 full-time equivalent jobs here, accounting for 21% of Cornish employment and around a quarter of the county’s GDP. When it comes to tourism earnings, Cornwall is up with big earners such as Devon and London.
To underline the importance of tourism here, one in eight employees in the South West works in tourism; here in Cornwall, the figure is one in five.
Good though tourism is for Cornwall – I would say that, wouldn’t I? – the brave and still relatively new world of Cornish tourism isn’t all a bed of roses.
Some tourism-related challenges, such as late-night rowdiness in town centres, are hardly unique to Cornwall.
However, I’ve heard all about Cornwall’s supposedly deteriorating environment: that its roads can’t cope and that it’s bursting at the seams; that it’s turning into a suburb of London or a glorified theme park; and that it’s disappearing under a mountain of fast-food cartons.
I’ve heard that Cornwall’s tourism industry is shallow, transient, tacky, exploitative, more concerned with quantity than quality, and hopelessly vulnerable to the whims of fashion.
To answer some of these criticisms, let’s start by acknowledging that Cornwall’s roads are busier than ever: road traffic increased by 125% between 1970 and 2000. Naturally enough, the worst congestion occurs in the summer peak, particularly at so-called ‘honey pot’ sites.
World-class attractions such as the Eden Project, the Tate Gallery at St Ives and the National Maritime Museum Cornwall have brought huge benefits but they’ve also brought traffic. Despite commendable public transport initiatives (sometimes to meet pre-set public transport usage obligations) such as combined rail-bus travel and entry to the Eden Project from anywhere in the UK, most visitors to Cornwall use their own cars.
We can’t blame visitors for using their cars which give them the freedom and flexibility to go where they want, when they want. We can provide attractive local alternatives, including park-and-ride schemes, but while it is recognised that only the Government can tackle the ‘big picture’, there are an increasing number of local integrated transport initiatives involving trains, buses, boats and ferries such as the proposed Fal River Links project. This is designed to encourage visitors to leave their cars if only for a day to give them an experience to remember.
Other problems linked to large numbers of visitors include growing pressure for leisure-related development in coastal areas such as Carlyon Bay.
Like tourist destinations across Europe, Cornwall attracts large numbers of visitors during the summer months. Family holidays, for example, are governed largely by the dates of school terms – helping to create a time-honoured surge of holiday activity in July and August. This provides an opportunity to promote Cornwall to other target markets, building on the county’s diverse assets, its culture, arts, heritage and environment during the shoulder months.
The people of Cornwall pay relatively high water charges, partly to satisfy this high summer demand and the need to keep the county’s many bathing waters clean. Cornwall’s refuse vehicles collect 50% more rubbish in August than in December. Hotels, shops, hospitals, the police and others must also cope with a population that increases ten fold in the summer.
As another problem, inward migration, holiday homes and other factors have pushed up property prices to record levels. Among the consequences, staff in the tourism industry as well as local residents frequently find it difficult to buy their own homes. There is therefore a need for joined up thinking involving tourism, planners and developers to provide sufficient “affordable housing”.
However, by making Cornwall’s tourism industry more sustainable, we can start to overcome its problems.
‘Sustainable tourism’ isn’t mass tourism in disguise. Rather, it aims to meet the needs of visitors to Cornwall, and of Cornwall itself, while protecting and enhancing opportunities for the future.
To elaborate, with sustainable tourism: visitors must be happy with all aspects of the tourism product; the tourism industry must be profitable enough to allow for re-investment and growth; the community must accept tourism and share in its benefits; and the environment must be protected.
Environmental protection is crucial: research by the Cornwall Tourist Board and the National Trust indicates that 75% to 81% of visitors come to Cornwall primarily for its coast and countryside.
Visitors would respond positively to what is essentially more carefully considered tourism development, or ‘wise growth’. According to national research carried out in 2002: 84% of visitors said they would choose environmentally accredited attractions and accommodation if available; and 76% of visitors said tourism should benefit local people.
Cornwall’s tourism industry has made huge strides in all areas of marketing and operations, over recent years. We can increase its sustainability further by continuing to raise its quality and make its tourism products and services consistently good.
The achievement of this aim is one of the most important challenges for the Cornwall Tourism Forum. When visitors experience quality – and enjoy themselves in the process – they will usually come back for more.
Importantly, a growing proportion of visitors will pay for consistently high quality. By meeting and exceeding these visitors’ high expectations, Cornish tourism businesses can pay their staff well and therefore help them to buy their own homes and stay in the area. These businesses will also have enough money left over to re-invest and think long term.
We can leave it for other, cheaper destinations to provide pile-’em-high, sell-’em-cheap holidays. Cornwall isn’t a large county so, for this and other reasons, we want value more than we want volume – sustainable tourism, not some sort of mass tourism free-for-all.
One way to drive up quality is the joint Department of Culture, Media & Sport/Local Government Association ‘Fitness for Purpose’ initiative, which is currently being piloted.
Involving local authority tourism and environmental health departments working more closely together, Fitness for Purpose will enable tourism destinations to focus their attention on accommodation providers that are failing to reach basic standards of hygiene, fire protection and safety. It will give these businesses support in raising their game, while applying a lighter regulatory touch to well-run, fully compliant and best-practice operators. At VisitBritain, we receive by far the most complaints about non-accredited accommodation so it really makes sense to increase quality accreditation.
We also use our National Quality Accommodation Standards, Visitor Attraction Quality Assurance Service and National Accessible Scheme to drive up quality standards. We are focused on marketing quality accredited accommodation only. The challenge to the private sector is therefore to raise the quality of their accommodation now to take advantage of this opportunity.
Among other quality-related initiatives, we have our Excellence in England Awards and the regional tourist boards run regular training courses. I was particularly pleased therefore, to hear about the Cornwall Tourism Awards, organised by the Cornwall Tourist Board that aim to recognise excellence and encourage all aspects of the tourism industry to improve the quality of their product.
To help attract, train and retain skilled staff, the tourism industry and government departments and agencies are working together to create a dedicated Sector Skills Council for the tourism industry. This will help to create the well-paid, skilled and permanent tourism jobs we all want to see.
It is important that all young people whilst at school are given the opportunity to understand as well as be aware of the opportunities in the industry. For this reason I am pleased to learn of the work of the Cornwall Education Business Partnership and the work that they are doing with the new Specialist Schools like Newquay Treviglas. I cannot emphasise enough the importance of creating this understanding early enough in order that young people can make informed choices about further education or jobs.
Specific tourism training schemes in customer care and management are available through the regional Tourism Skills Network, whilst Cornwall College provides excellent education and training in tourism and the £96 million Combined Universities in Cornwall will provide further support. I would hope that the CUC will take advantage of their geographical location to offer courses to satisfy the demand for management and vocational skills that will be needed if Cornwall is to rise to the challenge of increased prosperity for tourism in the 21st century.
We can increase the economic benefits of tourism to local communities by reducing ‘leakage’ from Cornwall, estimated by the Cornwall Tourism Forum to be 50% of expenditure.
One way to reduce leakage from Cornwall is to create a bigger pot of money in the first place – by trying to attract more higher-spending overseas tourists, for example, which we’re doing. Overseas visitors also tend to come here throughout the year, so we can reduce seasonality, reduce peak-season pressures and bring in more income at the same time.
And as I have already mentioned the most effective way to reduce leakage is to develop the local capacity for providing appropriate services and by growing and processing local produce. There is no better way for the tourism industry to engage with the wider community than by supporting local producers thereby providing more sustainable local employment.
As in other ways, the innovative and inspiring Eden Project shows us a good way forward: it employs 600 people, aged 16 to 72; 95% of its staff were recruited locally and half were previously unemployed.
The Eden Project has attracted around 4 million visitors since opening in 2001. It contributes £160 million a year to the local economy. Over a period of 14 months, it spent £14 million on supplies, of which 73% stayed in the South West and 56% stayed in Cornwall.
Incidentally, a third of Eden Project visitors are new to Cornwall. ‘Flagship’ projects such as this are a good way of introducing visitors to the county. Once here, they like what they see and visit other attractions.
To increase quality and sustainability, we should also improve our long-term planning and understand the significant links between agriculture, tourism, the environment and economic development, and so on. The new Management Plan for the Cornwall Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) will be implemented from 2004 and does exactly this. This clear, co-ordinated approach is welcome.
It hasn’t been done much in the past, partly because both the tourism industry and land ownership are so fragmented. This approach has much to commend it and I would urge you to adopt more of this strategic and co-ordinated thinking.
Cornwall’s AONB covers around a third of Cornwall – it’s a quasi-national park – and the National Trust owns 40% of the coastline. The Cornwall Wildlife Trust and English Nature conserve and promote the county’s flora and fauna (the wildlife which attracts many visitors to the county).
The importance of the link between tourism, the environment and wildlife has been recognised in two ways.
Firstly, Stephen Warman, Manager of English Nature, has been appointed Chairman of the Sustainable Tourism Working Party, working for Cornwall Tourism Forum.
Secondly, Cornwall Wildlife Trust organised ‘The Wealth of Wildlife’ project this year, through the Cornwall Biodiversity Initiative. This promotes conservation in tourism and includes working with campsites and caravan sites to improve their land for wildlife. It highlights successful sites in the David Bellamy Conservation Award Scheme.
In addition, a series of Cornish wildlife identity guides is being produced for the 2004 tourist season. These will focus on Cornwall’s fabulous range of habitats and scenery and look at what wildlife visitors might see in different areas.
During the summer, more than 2,000 visitors took part in Cornwall’s first Wildlife Oscar Awards, which were launched at the Eden Project in the spring.
Now…it gives me great pleasure to announce the ‘Top of the Wildlife Pops’. The top four nominated for the title included the otter, the dolphin and the chough.
But the winner of the 2003 Wildlife Awards is…the shore crab. Perhaps this isn’t surprising, given that children get so much enjoyment from rock pools at low-tide on beaches around Cornwall.
Cornwall is as beautiful as ever and I think we have a lot to thank them for.
Finally, we can increase quality and sustainability by providing better information about Cornwall – so that it’s as easy to find and book a holiday here as a holiday abroad, for example. Our new visitbritain.com, visitengland.com and england.net websites enable potential visitors to find the information they want and make bookings quickly and efficiently. I will look forward to your own contribution to quality marketing as you introduce Cornwall’s own web portal next year.
I’d like to take a short break to show you this compilation of overseas media coverage of Cornwall.
Before we show you the video, I should mention that overseas visitors spend 17% more per trip to Cornwall than domestic visitors, mainly because they stay an average of two nights longer.
Cornwall currently receives 27 times as many domestic visitors as overseas visitors – so you can see the potential.
At VisitBritain we are working hard to attract more overseas visitors to Britain and, once they’re here, to tempt more of them to visit destinations such as Cornwall. I might be biased but we do a very good job, too: for every £1 in grant we receive from the Government, we generate £30 in earnings from overseas visitors.
Thank you. I’m encouraged by the many positive tourism-related developments in Cornwall, including Newquay’s reincarnation as the surf capital of the UK and the growing cruise business at Falmouth. More generally, I’d like to finish this lecture by running through some of the reasons why I think tourism in Cornwall has a good future.
Climate change: the Earth’s climate has always changed and current global warming – whatever its cause – brings both good and bad. Here in Cornwall, we have one or two downsides but climate change is making our weather more reliable and greatly extending the tourism season.
Demographics: Cornwall’s population has increased by 18% since 1981 to reach just over half a million. This growth is more than four times as fast as the UK as a whole and Cornwall’s population is forecast to reach 518,000 by 2008. The South West’s population has increased by 3.9% since 1991, compared with 2.5% in Britain as a whole. More people in the region means more potential visitors, particularly day-trippers who still form a lower proportion of visitors in Cornwall than in the rest of the South West.
Media exposure: Cornwall has moved from the wings to centre-stage over recent years, whether in Rick Stein’s cookery programmes shown in Britain, documentaries about the Eden Project shown in the US – or the latest James Bond movie shown worldwide.
In ‘Die Another Day’, Holywell Bay near Newquay was magically transformed into a bleak stretch of North Korean coastline. Cornwall really was in the limelight in this film, because they also used the Eden Project.
On the literary front, the books of Rosamunde Pilcher, Daphne du Maurier and others have helped to put Cornwall on the map, particularly abroad.
Accessibility: Cornwall is easier to reach than ever. Starting with the opening of the M5 in the 1970s, and with upgrading of the A303, A30 and A38, Cornwall is now ‘closer’ to everywhere else. Athough ‘missing links’ remain, such as single-carriageway stretches of the A30 at Goss Moor, the A38 at Dobwalls in Cornwall and the A303 in Devon and Somerset, they are being tackled one by one.
Speaking from my own experience, I live just west of London and I can now be in my favourite part of north Cornwall in as little as three and a half hours. As I head down the M3 and the A303 on my way to Cornwall, I often feel the stress just melting away.
On the railways, I’m delighted to see that, within the next year, the 11 km Burngullow-Probus stretch of the Cornish main line will be restored to double track, greatly improving operating reliability between St Austell and Truro. This £15 million Strategic Rail Authority scheme has been supported by EU Objective One funds and will double the route’s scheduling capacity. In my view, it will also make Plymouth-Penzance a ‘proper’ main line again.
With so many exciting developments in the Falmouth area, it’s good to see that Cornwall County Council and Network Rail are also working on plans to upgrade the Truro-Falmouth line.
Objective One funds of £340 million over the six years to 2006 – worth £800 million with public and private matching funds – have certainly boosted Cornwall, including the vital infrastructure that underpins Cornish tourism and helps it to reach its potential.
Newquay Cornwall Airport has grown rapidly over the past three years and is on course to handle 250,000 passengers in 2003/04. The Department of Transport expects the airport to handle 850,000 passengers a year by 2010.
Ryanair now links Newquay with Stansted twice a day, Air Southwest has successfully taken over from BA on the Gatwick route, flying four times a day, and Skybus serves the Isles of Scilly.
The airport is also handling a growing number of day-trip and other charter flights from places such as Yorkshire, Scotland, Austria and Switzerland, full of people keen to see the Eden Project and other Cornish attractions.
Among organisations that have supported Newquay Cornwall Airport over the years, the South West Regional Development Agency has contributed towards the airport’s terminal, hangar and car parks.
The growth and facilities of the airport has been impressive – it even includes the UK’s eighth largest runway! It is critical that you all support the future of this airport both for the tourism industry and the wider business community. I know that Cornwall County Council, Restormel Borough Council and everyone involved are working hard to find the best way forward. And I will be very pleased to help in any way I can if you feel this would be useful.
Next, people are increasingly looking for the environmentally oriented, active and health-focused holidays that Cornwall can provide so well. For example, Cornwall has 4,300 km of public rights of way, including 290 km of the ‘Cornish Way’ and 430 km of the South West Coast Path.
Finally, I firmly believe that VisitBritain and our partners, such as South West Tourism, are doing all the right things to attract more overseas visitors, increase the value of English domestic tourism and increase the value of year-round tourism.
I would like to conclude tonight’s lecture by saying that the people of Cornwall have always been pioneers – in their own county, in Britain and around the world. Davy, Trevithick and others had a major impact in the industrial revolution and their tradition of innovation continues here today, most notably with Ball and Smit and the Eden Project.
The future of tourism in Cornwall is as a high quality, customer focused, year-round destination that builds on sustainable growth and natural, historic and cultural distinctiveness.
Sustainable tourism needs to become part of mainstream tourism, not an optional add-on. It is at the heart of future success. There will be a big price to pay if the County does not “buy into” the future vision of the tourism industry. We’re making progress here but there’s a long way to go.
The two-week bucket-and-spade, single choice one-size-fits-all holiday is still available if you want it, but Cornwall’s tourism industry is now far more sophisticated. It’s getting sharper, better – and more successful, just like Cornwall itself. I know that tourism brings challenges along the way, like everything else, but most centre on managing success.
Just in case we start to feel smug, let’s remember that Cornwall’s competitors are constantly improving their market research, accommodation, attractions, infrastructure, marketing, partnerships…everything. We need to stay one step ahead because, quite simply, they would love the jobs, prosperity and prestige that tourism brings. It’s good to be wanted, and tourism shows that a destination is wanted.
We can stay one step ahead of our domestic and overseas competitors – or shall we make it two? – by making the most of Cornwall’s distinctiveness, pioneering spirit and quality; by remembering the past, doing our best today and planning for a better future.
The world is full of featureless, characterless and humdrum destinations. Whatever we do over the coming years, let’s keep Cornwall special!