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Press Release

"A lost opportunity for Britain"

25 August 2011

BATA slams coalition for suppressing air travel and tourism in new demand forecast

Commenting on today's revised Government forecasts of demand for air travel that show a slashing by 25% of passengers travelling through Britain's airports in twenty years time compared to forecasts produced just two years ago, Simon Buck, Chief Executive of the British Air Transport Association said:

"As an island nation, Britain's future prosperity depends on our connectivity with the rest of the world – especially with the growing economies of Brazil, China and India where we need to compete effectively if we are to win new business and attract tourist income.

The Prime Minister acknowledges that tourism is the UK's third largest export earner and wants to grow our share of world tourism to help Britain recover from economic crisis. But today's revised forecasts issued by the Coalition Government make unrealistic assumptions that many tourists travelling to and from Britain will instead choose to travel by high speed train or, presumably, not to travel at all to destinations such as the Spanish or Greek Islands.

The Coalition's rash decision to ban desperately needed expansion in the form of new runway capacity at London's airports means that, simply to maintain projected growth in inbound long haul tourism, the Government expects British people, especially those who live in the south east, to stop taking holidays overseas. This is completely unacceptable.

Last year, London was the only region of the UK to see visits by overseas residents increase. By restricting demand in the south east, we will not necessarily see business and tourism go elsewhere in the UK. We cannot continue to squeeze a quart into a pint pot and the new aviation demand forecasts clearly show business travellers and tourists will be deflected away from the UK. BATA estimates that the reduction in growth shown in the revised forecasts will cost the UK economy at least £10 billion over the next twenty years. With our economy flat on its back at the moment, we need a reduction in revenue to the UK of that magnitude as much as a hole in the head."



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British Air Transport Association

British Air Transport Association

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