Travel Matters is ABTA’s annual policy event in which we bring together the travel industry and political and regulatory decision makers to improve mutual understanding of where each stands, and what each is seeking. 

Today, at the 13th edition of the event, Mark Tanzer, Chief Executive of ABTA – The Travel Association, which is the largest travel trade body, addressed over 100 senior delegates from across the travel industry at ABTA’s Travel Matters event in Westminster. A full copy of his speech is as follows:

Although it’s only six months since we last met it does feel that the pace of change is unrelenting. 

Political dramas are inevitable, of course, and within the travel industry we continue to feel the impact of our departure from the EU, and from the COVID pandemic. If you add into the mix the arrival from out of the blue of a transformative technology such as generative AI, the need for the travel industry and the political establishment to remain in close dialogue is clear.

ABTA is apolitical in party allegiance, but intensely engaged with the Government and opposition of the day across a very broad range of issues and departments. The Department for Transport, and Aviation in particular, are especially important stakeholders for our industry, not only because they are intrinsic to what we do, but because together we face the challenge of climate change and decarbonisation.

I’m delighted to welcome here today the Aviation Minister, Baroness Vere, and her opposition shadow Mike Kane MP, Shadow Minister for Aviation, Maritime and Security. I look forward to hearing from both of you shortly.

The travel industry continues its steady recovery from the dark days of the pandemic. The appetite for international travel seems undimmed, and the acute manpower shortages of 2022 have abated. 

But we are not out of the woods yet. Many customers are still in a cost of living squeeze with a stubbornly high inflation rate keeping interest rates and mortgage costs high, and travel companies are still burdened with the debt overhang from the pandemic, at higher interest rates. It won’t be until we reach the end of 2023 that we see exactly where the industry stands on its recovery path.

I’m not an economist but by common consent, the structural problem for this and future governments is how to get real growth into the economy. I read an article recently that said that the problem is not that we’re in a recession, but that we’re not in a recession! We have our foot flat down on the accelerator with low unemployment, and nothing is happening.

Whatever the economic and industrial plan to get our economy moving, transport and travel surely have an important role to play. Not only does our sector contribute £49bn of GVA and support 900,000 jobs across the country, but it makes viable all the links that are necessary for us to be part of the international economy.

The Government and travel industry need to work together towards a shared vision of our future, putting the debate about Brexit behind us and building new bridges to the EU and beyond, and thinking about how technology can make international travel easier for customers and more efficient for businesses. Collaboration is already underway, but more urgency needs to be injected. 

I am pleased that since we last met the Retained EU Law Bill has been amended to remove the ‘sunset clause’ under which all EU-derived secondary legislation would have fallen away at the end of this year. 

I welcome the fact that the Government has accepted that this artificial and unobtainable deadline would have been unhelpful to industry; the additional time the move gives will enable government and industry to work together, to identify where opportunities exist for sensible de-regulation. 

We can also now focus our efforts – at a point when time is limited before the end of the current parliament – on the industry’s strategic priorities.  

Some of these areas are close to home and we continue to liaise closely with the CAA over the current review of the ATOL consumer protection scheme. I’m not going to go into the detail of that review, except to say that ABTA’s position at the centre of a diverse industry has enabled all views to be expressed, bringing home the diversity of business models that exist, and the need for a plurality of protection solutions. 

We also await the forthcoming review of the Package Travel Regulations and are keen that the two systems can be harmonised to eliminate unnecessary duplication.

Two other topics of central concern are climate change and the current and future workforce pipeline. ABTA was pleased to be invited to represent the outbound tourism sector on the Aviation Council, a body established under our Aviation Minister to bring together aviation’s main stakeholders. Alongside other joint government bodies that ABTA sits on, the Aviation Council has the potential to drive change that the industry needs.

The target of net zero aviation is an aggressive but necessary one. Much work remains to be done, but progress is being made. The growth in aviation has been successfully decoupled from growth in aviation carbon emissions through the introduction of more modern airplanes, and the first test flights using hydrogen fuel are underway. One sustainable aviation fuel plant is up and running and a further five are due to be commissioned. 

But we really need to step up the pace of investment and the pace of airspace modernisation – to put ourselves on a crisis footing. We did it during COVID, so we know it is possible!

The future health of the travel sector needs an effective and efficient way of bringing people into the industry at different stages of their careers. Short term patches in securing leases for continental wet-lease crews still await a longer-term solution; the review of education courses that the government is undertaking needs to ensure that routes into the travel industry are not shut off; a mutual mobility scheme needs to be put in place for young people starting in the industry – for Europeans wishing to work here temporarily, and for UK citizens wishing to work temporarily in the EU. 

A bilateral youth mobility scheme exists for other countries, and it can be done without conferring permanent residency entitlement, so shouldn’t be treated as part of the wider immigration debate. It’s an area where ABTA has been focusing our energies recently and we’ll be discussing it in more detail later this morning.

As I said a minute ago, ABTA’s interaction with Government crosses many different departments, ranging from DCMS and FCDO to Business & Trade and the Treasury, and more. I must pay tribute to the civil servants and those in the ministerial private offices with whom we are in regular and productive contact. Their work is usually unsung but essential to providing an effective operating system for our industry. 

ABTA and our members have many years of experience to draw on, helping us to present policymakers not with more problems but, instead with practical solutions. We speak not only for the industry but for the travelling public, whose interests are, as always, paramount. 

The theme of today’s conference is travel in 2030. Although that is only seven years away, I am sure that the landscape will look very different then. But international travel will still be an integral part of people’s lives, and of our economy, and ABTA looks forward to working with our members and with government to deliver the future that we all want, and need.