Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me, Simon Calder.

It's Tuesday the 20th of January.

And a report out today makes very interesting reading for anybody who is concerned about UK tourism,

as I think we all should be.

It's called the economic value of tourism in the United Kingdom and it was conducted by Visit Britain, Visit England and Oxford Economics.

And I'm delighted to be talking to the chief executive of Visit Britain, Patricia Yates.

What's the headlines?

The headlines, I think, are the size of the industry. So worth 147 billion pounds, that's 5% of GDP,

employing 2.4 million people, and 52 billion pounds generated in taxation. That pays for half the wages of the NHS in

England. So tourism, a huge industry that has benefits right across every part of the UK. And the

money it generates doesn't just give local economic growth,

but it delivers services that we all rely on. I believe that the closest thing any nation can get

to free money is inbound tourism, people coming and spending cash here because, of course, as you've been explaining,

they pay tax, they create jobs, they bring in wealth and they help fund amenities. The local

community wouldn't necessarily be able to support on their own. And that ranges from cafes in

the wilds of Shetland to theatres in the West End of London.

The challenge that we have for Britain is that this is a competitive world. We can see that we're

losing market share to Western Europe, but the prospects there are really good. We have great assets

and we have an industry that wants to go out

and compete. And we visit Britain are obviously aiding that with our starring Great Britain

campaign and working with government to make sure that government policy underpins that growth.

Government policy is doing all from my point point of view, that it possibly can

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