BATH and Bridgerton could play a key part in hitting the government’s target of attracting millions more to the UK, the tourism minister has said on a visit to the city.
Chris Bryant MP, minister of state for creative industries, arts, and tourism, who was touring Bridgerton filming locations in Bath on Tuesday for English Tourism Week, said that the government wanted 50m international visitors a year to come to the UK by 2030 — 9m more than currently come. He said: “If they are going to come to the UK they can’t all come to London. They have got to come to other parts of the UK.
“Bath is a classic instance of one of the places that people love to come. International visitors know loads about it, partly because of the Roman history but also the Bridgerton presence — let alone the Jane Austen 250th anniversary. So its got so many different things bound in to why you should celebrate this part of the county that I wanted to celebrate English Tourism Week by coming here.”
He added that he was working on a national tourism strategy, which had never been done before. He said: “We have kind of always let tourism do its own thing and I think that’s a mistake because you need to make sure there is the connectivity. If you get off an aeroplane at Bristol Airport or whatever, how do you know where to go?
“How physically do you get to anywhere? Is there going to be a train. Is there going to be a bus? Do you need to hire a car? So we need to do better at that.”
He added: “I think we’ve also got to do better at making sure that tourism businesses/visitor economy businesses can really prosper. […] You’ve still got to make sure there are staff with skills and that warm welcome you want in the visitor economy, and that’s part of the kind of work we are putting together now as part of our national tourism strategy.”
Speaking backstage at the Theatre Royal, Mr Bryant said the creative industries were a “really important part” of why people came to the UK. He said: “What they’ve been telling me here in the Theatre Royal in Bath is what has really worked for them is the Theatre Tax Credit, which means that can afford to put on shows which simply otherwise would not be possible for them — and they have had phenomenal successes.”
Mr Bryant was touring the theatre at the same time as his Labour colleagues in Westminster announced a plan to save £5bn over the next five years by cutting or restricting sickness and disability benefits. Asked if he was comfortable with this, as a Labour MP, Mr Bryant said: “In my patch in South Wales we have a lot of people who back in the Tory years under Mrs Thatcher were completely left on the scrap heap because the mines were closed and basically everybody was left to go on sickness benefits.
“That isn’t a real quality of life for lots of people and there are lots of people who would dearly love to get off benefits and into work — that’s why we’ve got to make sure there are incentives there, or at least there aren’t perverse incentives for people to rely too much on benefits. So for me it’s a moral case about trying to get as many people, including young people many of whom at the moment unfortunately have effectively been written off by the system and told: “Go and claim benefits you’ll be fine.” That isn’t a life. That’s why I’m passionate about wanting to reform the system.
“I haven’t seen any of the details today so I can’t comment on them; I’ve been wandering around Bath.”
