Gordon Brown urged to up investment in UK tourism

Gordon Brown has faced renewed calls from industry leaders to increase investment in tourism, ahead of next week’s Comprehensive Spending Review.

The Government has announced that the Review, which will set out departmental spending for 2008-2011, will be published on Tuesday afternoon.

Publishing its annual review today, VisitBritain added its weight to calls for the Government to increase investment in tourism to ensure the predicted ?2.1b benefit of the 2012 Olympics are realised.

Chairman Christopher Rodrigues said that while the Government will spend ?9b staging the Games, it has yet to promise a penny more to secure UK tourism’s legacy.

The Tourism Alliance has previously published figures showing VisitBritain's overseas marketing budget of ?35.5m has been static for a decade, despite tourism benefiting the UK economy by ?1b a year.