Tourism Leisure Hospitality

After reading the article in this month's edition I must say it echos everything I have thought since Britain first decided to go for hosting the event. I cannot see Britain bucking the trend of losing out on tourism in the same way either. I am glad we no longer live in London as we would have probably disappeared to foreign climes during the Olympics in 2012, and many of our friends still in London will be doing just that. This does not bode well for our industry and it will be a quadruple whammy as we will be at a financial loss due to 1) losing out on pre tourism; 2) losing out on tourism during the event; 3) down on guests after the event; and this is the real sting in the tail...4) paying for the losses via higher taxes made for holding the event in the first place! Sorry if I sound so negative but I do think we should wake up now and take steps to buffer our businesses in the event of a downturn in 2012.

Next year the Ryder Cup is being held in Newport and we are about 30 minutes drive away. Already many of the hotels are booked out and local people are putting their houses up to rent for 1 or 2 weeks at extortionate rates (£10,000 to £20,000) - I wonder how many will be taken up? I am going to use this event as a litmus test.