Written evidence submitted by CLIA UK & Ireland

Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee Inquiry - Promoting Britain abroad.

CLIA UK & Ireland

CLIA is the world's largest cruise industry trade association, providing a unified voice and leading authority of the global cruise community. On behalf of its members, affiliates, and partners, the organization supports policies and practices that foster a secure, healthy, and sustainable cruise ship environment, promoting positive travel experiences for the more than 30 million passengers who have cruised annually. The CLIA community includes the world's most prestigious ocean, river, and specialty cruise lines; a highly trained and certified travel agent community; and widespread industry stakeholders, including ports & destinations, ship development, suppliers, and business services. CLIA represents 95% of the world’s ocean-going cruise capacity, as well as 54,000 travel agents, and 15,000 of the largest travel agencies in the world.

Questions

The inquiry asks the following questions:

1. What needs to be done to re-establish the UK as a holiday destination for international travellers? 

- What should Government and the tourism boards be doing to support the inbound tourism industry in its recovery? 

- What will the impact on the UK’s hospitality, cultural and heritage sectors be if inbound tourism is slow to recover to pre-pandemic levels?

2. Does the Tourism Recovery Plan go far enough to support the industry’s recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic?  

- What are the biggest challenges to delivering the plan? 

3. What should the UK be doing to maintain its status as a ‘soft power superpower’ and further promote its culture and heritage on the global stage?  

- How can the UK capitalise on its exit from the European Union? 

- What are the biggest threats to the status of ‘soft power superpower’?

Response

1. What needs to be done to re-establish the UK as a holiday destination for international travellers? 

- What should Government and the tourism boards be doing to support the inbound tourism industry in its recovery? 

- What will the impact on the UK’s hospitality, cultural and heritage sectors be if inbound tourism is slow to recover to pre-pandemic levels?

Introduction

The global cruise industry is an important part of the worldwide tourism industry, often supporting small and medium sized businesses, and reaching communities that may not traditionally benefit from other forms of tourism.

In the UK cruise is often perceived as an out-bound operation, and indeed the UK is a major source market for international cruise guests.

However, as we saw in summer 2021, the UK is also an incredible cruise destination.  It is perfectly placed in Northern Europe to attract ships, there are plentiful ports across the UK, and there is demand from across the world to explore the nation’s attractions.

Indeed, the over 50 cruise ports across the UK have the capacity to welcome a large number of international guests; and cruises to these ports can hugely benefit some of those coastal communities that are often in some of the most economically deprived parts of the UK.

The spend by cruise lines and guests in ports can be an important contributor to these ecosystems.

And, to offer greater longer term economic impact, the majority of cruise guests will return to a destination visited on a cruise on a land-based holiday.  What better way to showcase the breadth of experiences available to international guests, then on a UK cruise?

The UK remains an attractive destination for international travellers, due to its large range of historic landmarks, inviting culture, rich heritage and its port infrastructure which enables international tourists to easily visit the UK. These factors have allowed the UK cruise industry to contribute £10 billion a year to the UK economy pre-COVID-19 with 2.2 million cruise passengers travelling through UK ports in 2019 alone. The industry was also one of the fastest growing in the UK, seeing a 63% increase in traffic between 2009 and 2019. The industry also provides significant employment and investment to coastal communities through its extensive supply chain, which includes ports, travel agencies, hotels, local transport operators, taxi firms, laundry, and catering companies.

At the start of the pandemic, the cruise industry made the unprecedented decision to pause its operations, shutting down the industry completely for over 14 months. It then reopened by taking safety measures which were unmatched in the travel industry and recognised by the UN as best practice. These include screening, testing, cleaning, and social distancing rules. However, despite restrictions easing over the summer, with both domestic cruise and international cruise being able to restart, there have been significant roadblocks to a resilient and full recovery for the UK industry.

• Firstly, there have been differing restart timelines and rules across the four nations. In order to re-establish the UK as a cruise holiday destination for international travellers, the UK Government must work closer with the Devolved Administrations to ensure aligned travel rules and requirements
• The ever-changing travel and quarantine rules have acted as a roadblock to the industry’s recovery. They have led to cruise companies having to change itineraries last minute and cancelling voyages at significant economic loss to the whole cruise and tourism ecosystem. They have also led to tourists having to change their plans, with the result that many lack the confidence to book a cruise all together. Finally, they have led to many international tourists being unable, or feeling unable, to book a UK cruise. In order to re-establish the UK as a destination for cruise passengers, it is vital that more clarity and consistency is in place. This is particularly vital for inbound travellers who may not be as familiar with navigating sites like Gov.UK
• The UK’s lack of coordination of travel requirements in line with other nations has stopped cruise ships from being able to travel abroad. For example, many of the UK’s travel rules appear to have been designed with other industries in mind, with an over-emphasis on other transport modes such as aviation compared to the unique requirements of cruise. An example is red-listing countries with short notice, where it takes significantly longer for a passenger to return to the UK on a voyage and be penalised by hotel quarantine requirements than an individual flying home. As such, the UK needs to focus on increasing consistency and clarity within its rules to enable the recovery of a UK cruise industry.
• Finally, with the growth in cruise tourism and its fundamental importance to local and national economies – cruise needs to be included in any discussions on attracting international visitors, in tourism planning, and as part of a joined-up plan on tourism to benefit the UK.

2. Does the Tourism Recovery Plan go far enough to support the industry’s recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic?  

- What are the biggest challenges to delivering the plan? 

The Tourism recovery plan fails to deal with the main obstacles impacting the recovery of the UK cruise industry, which are the lack of consistent and clear travel restrictions which are not designed with the cruise industry in mind.

• When the plan was published, domestic cruise restart had only begun weeks beforehand, and international cruise was still not able to occur. Although the industry has now been allowed to reopen, in line with the plan’s short-term goal of reopening industries and allowing them to safely provide business -again, ongoing restrictions have hindered this recovery.
• The plan does not take into account how the Government implements new travel restrictions, and should provide an outline for this, with the aim of providing more certainty for customers and industry,
• The plan needs to be more sector specific. The plan should highlight the specific needs of the cruise industry, and to offer to support it with its unique challenges such as the red list, vaccine certification and passenger locator forms. For example, if someone visits a country on a cruise which is added to the red list after they visit, they are unable to expedite their return to the UK to avoid a hotel quarantine, in contrast to those who travel by other means. The plan should also pledge for there to be more cross departmental work to ensure that this is the case, due to these issues falling within different Government departments, which is delaying the ability to solve them.
• The Government can do a better job of showcasing and championing the cruise sector.
• The plan pledged a Maritime Covid-19 Recovery Route Map, however this has yet to be published and there is no timeline in place for this. A sector-specific plan would help to deliver the cruise industry’s recovery, though it is crucial that the Government works with the industry to develop this.

Closing Comments

The cruise industry is an important part of the UK travel industry – supporting travel agents, airports, coach companies, and many local ports, attractions and communities.  And whilst from a UK holidaymaker perspective, much cruise travel is overseas; the UK is an important cruise destination in its own right, and is able to attract international guests to UK shores.

As an industry we very much value the chance to be part of any UK tourism discussion – to explain any specific needs and wants, our benefits and our unique operational protocols.

Our regulatory needs will evolve as we continue to develop a national response to Covid; but it would be disappointing for the cruise industry, and the many communities that we visit, not be part of the future.