Seasonal Businesses in Travel (SBIT) – Written evidence (FTS0023)

Who is SBiT?

SBIT (Seasonal Businesses in Travel) is a unique and diverse group of over 200 outbound British travel and service companies operating throughout the summer and winter holiday seasons. Most are SMEs and all are British businesses.

Our aim is to ensure that the (future) relationship between the EU nations and the UK fosters and aims to grow the contribution British outbound travel companies make to the economies of both the UK and the EU nations by protecting the ability of British workers to temporarily work across the EU nations supporting the seasonal travel industry. This is how we plan to achieve our aims:

By ensuring that all those involved in negotiations in the UK and the EU are fully aware of the significant benefits, both cultural and economic, of UK citizens being able to temporarily work in EU nations supporting the seasonal travel industry.
By lobbying to ensure that the mechanisms necessary for UK citizens to work seasonally across EU nations are as frictionless and straightforward as possible thereby protecting the jobs and economic contributions of the thousands of UK citizens employed in this sector of the UK travel industry.
By ensuring members are kept up to date with the fast evolving and changing regulatory requirements affecting their businesses as the UK’s new relationship with the EU is negotiated.
By facilitating industry-wide practical action and support for British businesses in their efforts to understand the emerging regulatory frameworks in European countries and so remain compliant in all areas.

We have over 100 corporate members comprising of companies operating across the summer and winter holiday seasons. They include:

Ski Total, Mark Warner, European Pubs, Neilson, Zenith Holidays, Kaluma Travel, Venue Holidays, Inghams, Ski Famille, Ski Esprit, Ski Weekends, Skiworld, Ocean Elements, Inghams lakes and mountains, Hip Hideouts, Seafarer Cruising & Sailing, Simply Morzine, Simply Salema, Will-i-ski, Wildwind, Healthy Options, Ski Vive, Esplora, Inghams Italy, The Alpine Generation, Alpoholics, Cool Ski jobs, Stanford Skiing, Family Ski Company, Ice and Fire Ski and Snowboard Holidays, Ski Olympic, YSE, Inghams, Meribel Ski Chalets, MTB Beds, Alpine Elements, Inferno Morzine, Mountain Heaven, The White Valley Company, Chalet Chardons, Orchards Cookery, Allez Alps, White Mountain Chalets, Ski Magic, The Alpine Club, Equity, Worldwide Kids, Mountain Express, Summit Special, Ski Val, Stanford Skiing, In 2 Action, Friendship travel, Tignes.co.uk, Val.co.uk, Ticket to Ride Group

We aim to represent the views of the 25,000 UK Staff that worked in the travel industry across Europe prior to Brexit and the £16 Bn of UK GDP that their European activities generated [1]

This evidence is supported by BASI (British Association of SnowSports Instructors) who endorse this evidence as indicated in their own submission of evidence.

Evidence – Which Question are we responding to:

SBiT is responding to QUESTION 3 in the cross-cutting section.

3. What effect will arrangements on the mobility of professionals have on trade in services between the UK and EU?

The following is a summary of the 3 reports that we have published on this subject

2017 – SBiT Brexit Impact assessment
2018 – A Crisis Looming
2019 – A Crisis Upon us

and can be found on our web site at www.sbit.org.uk/member-quotes

SBiT evidence

Our belief is that the new arrangements regarding mobility of professionals will result in a loss of the majority of the 25,000 UK jobs that currently are employed in UK outbound tourism to Europe. This will have a significant negative impact on the £16 Bn of UK GDP that the sector is responsible for.

UK Outbound travel has been one of the great economic and cultural successes of our membership of the EU. The free movement of UK staff across the EU, that our membership enabled, has meant that the UK Outbound tourism industry operating in Europe has grown significantly over the past 20 years to a point where in 2017 the industry employed 25,000 mainly young UK staff across the EU and generated £16.5 Bn in UK GDP and ~£1Bn in tax revenues for HMT.

Brexit has threatened all of this and as things stand with the 2020 EU UK Trade agreement, most of these jobs and economic output will be lost from the UK economy.

Before the end of the transition period UK firms could recruit UK staff and second them to work across the EU without any barriers. These jobs would be Holiday reps, tour guides, chalet staff, nannies, ski instructors, logistics managers, drivers, chefs, bar staff.

This staff mobility allowed the industry to plan, pre-purchase the elements of a package holiday (accommodation, flights, transfers, etc..) and then market these holidays safe in the knowledge that they would be able to recruit UK staff to deliver these holidays.

Now if a UK company wants to employ a UK chalet staff member and a childcare assistant to deliver a UK Family ski holiday in the French Alps, the UK Company will need to do the following:

Advertise in a French unemployment offices for 8 weeks to prove that no French person could adequately perform that role
Then advertise and select a UK member of staff
Then apply for a 3rd country French Work Permit to the Albertville regional French authorities on an 18-page paper form. There is no guarantee of success and SBiT understands that the forms are currently processed manually by a single part-time member of staff who would ordinarily process a handful of work permit applications per year taking several months for each permit.
If the UK company has been successful in receiving a work-permit they must apply for a immigration stay visa, in the UK, before the member of staff can travel to France.

At any stage of this process the UK worker could be rejected.

Normally this process would take 4-6 months and only if you were applying for a handful of staff. The UK Ski industry has a potential requirement for 8-10,000 work permits in the French Alps.

Practically this makes the option of employing UK staff a non-starter for the industry to guarantee to be able to deliver ski holidays with the right staff. We know from testing the recruitment market across Europe that there are not many EU national local workers that want to “work a season” as opposed to a full-time permanent role. It also questionable if they can deliver the culturally compatible holidays for the UK market. As a result, UK companies are unlikely to take the risk to purchase, plan and market ski holidays that they may not be able to deliver.

This is just one example regarding delivering ski holidays in France, however similar challenges are in play across many European countries and many different UK holiday sectors

The loss of jobs (~25k) amongst those UK staff seconded to work in the EU will be predominantly amongst young people. The companies most likely to cease trading are the small and medium sized companies which are the mainstay of UK travel businesses. The door has been left wide open to the European based multi-nationals dominating the package travel market, changing the holiday experiences and choices of millions of Britons.

These staff are crucially important not just in making UK businesses cost efficient but also by facilitating travel for the holidaymaker. In a recent survey of UK skiers booked through intermediaries (tour operators, travel agents etc) 69% said that a resort representative was either important or that they would not travel without one. These staff have hitherto been for the most part UK staff delivering culturally compatible service levels.

A recent campaign and petition “save our travel jobs” attracted over 16,000 signatures calling on the UK Government to find a way to allow young people to temporarily continue working across Europe in the travel sector

One solution to this would be to work with our European partners to agree that young people should be able to work for short periods across Europe without the need for Visa's or work permits. This could be achieved through an extension of the existing Tier 5 visa regime (Youth Mobility Scheme) to EU countries.

I would once again encourage the committee to read the reports that we have produced on this issue over the past 4 years. The reports are on our web site, and attracted quiet a bit of media attention, they are also listed at the start of this evidence.

SBiT is available and more than happy to give evidence in person if required.

February 2021