I saw a story yesterday about Tourism Australia doing more marketing activity aimed at the Youth Market. I loved the quote that the Youth Market was “one of the best and quickest to turn on”. Hallelujah! It’s about time this so often unrecognised sector is being seen for what it is – an important and valuable supplier of inbound visitors and spend.

And Tourism Australia does market to Youth so well – whether it be prominence on their website or via Social Media where their Work & Travel Facebook page has over 64k followers.

It isn’t surprising that the Aussies are out there showing the love to Youth. To be fair, they’ve long recognised the importance of backpackers and young travellers. Their Tourism Export Council has been a big supporter the industry – for goodness sake, they even run a Backpacker & Youth Tourism Conference . I remember 10-15 years ago in my days of business development for an International Student & Youth Travel retailer how amazed I was that the various jaunts up to the UK by Aussie suppliers was highly subsidised by ATEC (and therefore the Government). UK suppliers were envious and well they should be. UKTI has never taken this sector seriously.

The South Africans have made half-hearted attempts at wooing Youth but I firmly believe that it’s the industry and not the Tourist Board that drives that. The same can be said for the Kiwis. If the Tourist Board does any promotion , it’s because of the sheer tenacity of the industry pushing and prodding.

I can think of few other Tourist Boards that do anything of any significance in the Youth sector. There are little pockets of activity with the French and the Germans and perhaps the Thais. My home country, the US, doesn’t regard the sector in any way, shape or form (pity). The closest VisitBritain gets to promoting this great island I live in and love to the Youth Market on their website is a bit of a nod for ‘Study & Learn’ and ‘Budget Accommodation’. It is really disappointing but not surprising. Between the eternally dwindling marketing spend (thanks DCMS) and frankly a lack of interest in the sector, I wouldn’t expect it. Of course I would love to see more recognition of the value of the sector and I’ve spent a good many years keeping up the profile but I have no expectation this will change any time soon.

So let’s see if they a really meant it when Official Tourism Organisations from around the who world met at the last WYSTC said ‘Don’t underestimate youth and student travel,’
as they started planning for a unified strategy addressing the need of the global youth & student travel industry valued at US $136 billion per year! Tourist Boards please take note – Australia seem to be the only serious player around.

I think it is great we celebrate all that is good with British Tourism every year – we have a lot to be proud of and shout about. I look forward to going up to BOBI at the NEC on Wednesday to meet and network with many colleagues in the Industry.

The Objectives of the week are good and noble:
British Tourism Week aims to demonstrate the importance of the tourism industry, and that it deserves Government support because it is delivering jobs and growth to the UK economy:
• to politicians
• to the media
• to the industry itself
• to students in schools, colleges & universities who are considering a career in the industry
• and to consumers

To achieve this, British Tourism Week will aim to:
• increase industry awareness
• promote training and professionalism
• raise awareness of our tourism offering

There is though a glaring absence of almost nothing relevant to the Youth & Student demographics. Fair to say having had 25 years’ experience in this part of the industry and being a Director of BETA (the British Educational Travel Association) www.betauk.com I am quite passionate about this.

I constantly shake my head at the snub of these interesting and income-generating tourists. Okay, they sleep and eat cheap but they will stay longer and let’s face it are the future business travellers and bigger spenders. The backpacker end of the market will continue to travel when others aren’t and the younger end travel in large groups!

It is a specialist market but it is ignored. Have a look at facts on the WYSETC Website which include the fact that the youth travel industry are Global Trend-Setters and are a resilient market, undeterred by economic crisis, terrorism and natural disasters and are a global market worth US$136 billion a year.

Part of the problem is that the industry could be better organised as well so a great deal of the fault lies with us. Many of those who operate in this arena, by the nature of the market, are anti-establishment and so perpetuate the notion that they are ignored because they don’t conform. That is to the most extent rubbish and much can be achieved through dialogue and just taking part. To join them will offer the opportunity to change the things that are deemed to be wrong.

Youth Tourism needs to be accepted by the mainstream and tourism bodes as a valuable part of the industry and those in Youth Tourism need to start taking more of a part in the traditional shows and events available to them. Let’s teach those who need to know about the value of the Youth Travel Industry. Youth, students and backpackers are a vital and worthwhile industry. Ignore us at your peril!

Two interesting documents arrived today. Both were brought to my attention via good old twitter (such a great source for getting news and views quickly).

Firstly, we have the ITB World Travel Trend Report 2010/2011 http://bit.ly/g7vXUF Good facts & figures on global arrival trends and particularly interesting to have quite a lot of up to date 2010 numbers. I do think that the 2011 and onwards forecast information lacks detail but does whet my whistle – good to read but overall there is nothing earth-shattering about the predictions.

In the Americas, it is the South that will continue to grow and have a good year welcoming visitors. The big spenders will continue to be the BRICs with Japanese travellers also showing good spending potential again. And overall, International tourism will see a growth of 3-5% (with Europe only seeing 1-3%).

Obviously good to see but we are still quite a way from where we were 3 or 4 years ago so it is an uphill climb.

Other interesting snippets include the fact that the Chinese far outspend Indians travellers (by over 20%). In the US, over 52% of the adult leisure travellers (a whopping 152 million!) use Social Media (music to my ears). And the newest customers to target in years to come are the ‘Lohas’ (“Lifestyles of health and sustainability”) or those who are well-off, well-educated, health-conscious and socially and environmentally aware.

Overall, a good report and highly recommend a read if you are in or interested in travel and tourism. Shame I can’t make ITB this year but good to have the research.

Then we have the long, anticipated UK Government’s Tourism Strategy http://bit.ly/dVo2Hg brought to us by the DCMS . Long, long awaited but having read through, wonder why it has taken this length of time – e.g. there is nothing in there that is rocket science or exciting.

Saying that, I am quite pleased to see a comprehensive report on the industry – note though I use the word ‘report’ rather than strategy. Admittedly I have only gotten through the document once so far but the proposals included will not thrill. I’m not sure in these tough economic times how anyone could have expected anything more – there isn’t the money to invest and thrill. So I suppose you can say this is making the best out of a bad situation and quite a lot is being left up to the tourism industry to make it happen themselves. I think we are screaming out for tough, business-minded leaders to help us get our act together and stop begging the government for more money and leadership which they just aren’t prepared to give.

I won’t go into too much detail now as I’d like another read and to consider the report in its entirety but there are a few areas/issues that come to the forefront for me. Firstly, the idea of having a bank holiday in October grabs me (better than March or April which will coincide with the Easter holiday break which moves between both months). What I am disappointed about is the part about moving the first May bank holiday. I have long heard that the actual proposal would entail adding another bank holiday not moving one. The UK does not have excessive bank holidays – I believe we lag behind in number of days against other European countries. What would help tourism is an extra bank holiday which extends the season, not just moving one.

I am also disappointed at the lack of mention of the British summertime year-round move – that extra hour which was going to be part of this strategy. Or have I missed something? There has been so much press recently and yet it has faded into the background.

Other notable points are the amount of money the government says they are giving to market the UK in the next 4 years – over £100m. Well, all of us know that is actually a significant drop in spend per year but the report tries hard to present this as a gift-wrapped present.

On a personal interest, it is a shame that not much is made of the contribution that the youth & student market brings to UK tourism. In the graph on page 51 of the report on ‘How the World Rates the UK compared to 50 nations’, the UK rated about the highest of all countries as a ‘good place to study for educational qualifications’. Shame there is no mention of this at all within the strategy as an area to exploit with lots of suppliers, organisations and operators so willing to work together with the government to take advantage. Stop ignoring or down-playing this sector – cutting Student Visa numbers without a detail understanding of the value of this market is just plain wrong.

There is much though that I am more positive about (seems more than others who are moaning) – many regional and local tourist boards needed a shake-up and VisitBritain needed to take back centrally the in-bound marketing campaigns (and I personally think they are doing a great job with Social Media!).

We have so much which is great about the UK and there is no end of willingness from the industry to help shout about it at home and around the world – but we clearly need to work together as an industry to make it happen and stop relying on the government who have taken a long time to say what is not so much a strategy but what is the obvious.