We received the folowing mail today highlighting Varney's reservations.

In response to Mr Cameron’s speech on the tourist industry:

Commenting on David Cameron’s speech on the tourist industry earlier today, Nick Varney, Chief Executive of Europe’s biggest visitor attraction operator Merlin Entertainments said:

 ‘While broadly welcoming Government’s recognition of the importance of the tourist industry to both the economy and as an employer in the UK, Mr Cameron actually offered little practical help to businesses such as ours in this speech.

“The fact is that the UK and London are no longer the automatic choice of travelers.  This country has a great deal of competition from other markets which are receiving real, practical support from their politicians.  Leisure operations in other European countries for example enjoy special VAT rates as low as 5 or 6% on attractions and hotel accommodation, compared to our 17.5% and soon to be 20% rate.     

“More than that, cutting national tourism marketing budgets now, in the run up to the Olympics, is hardly conducive to increasing visits or spend here.  Nor does it  give any confidence to the industry that this is any more than rhetoric, or that this Government really understands or cares about our issues.”

The key is, of course, as James Berresford, CEO of Visit England, adriotly pointed out last month at the Operator's Conference in Oxford, not so much whether the Government itself "gets" tourism but whether the Treasury does. Is the Government all talk or, as my grandmother would less adriotly put it, are they  "all fur coat and no knickers?"

For the last two centuries it has become a destination for holidaymakers and aesthetes seeking a break from the city. From Tolkein to Jane Austen, Tennyson to Whistler it has been a site of artistic endeavour; great thinkers and artists have painted and written about Lyme Regis’ charms.

Ambling along the beach the other day, with a pocket full of ammonites and a paper under my arm, I chanced across a man carrying an enormous boulder. This was Adrian Gray. He lives and works in the town and is a practitioner of the delicate art of stone balancing. This involves taking one enormous, back-breakingly heavy stone, positioning it on top of another even larger stone and somehow coaxing the two into equilibrium, so that the one balances on the other. It is, as he explained, an ephemeral business, strong winds will wreak havoc on his precarious constructions, so he photographs all his creations and then they are gone - back to being boulders on the beach.

It made for an arresting spectacle. Children with buckets and spades, pensioners, mums and dads, all transfixed by a couple of stones. As Adrian explains, “It's a paradox of fragility and solidity. These are really heavy stones, balanced in a very, very fragile way. It's the illusionary quality that makes it so magical. Your brain is telling you that's not possible, while your eyes say it is.”

It is worth remembering that while the attractions industry is buzzing with technologies, equally important are the performers, the individuals with outstanding artistic or performance skills that can dazzle crowds just as brilliantly as an encounter with the latest gadgetry. The jugglers, the street artists, the bubble makers and the acrobats, the mascots and the actors: all these people are as much a part of modern amusement parks and attractions as they were a hundred years ago at the traveling carnivals and festivals.

Adrian Gray can be contacted at  ww.stonebalancing.com

By Greg Van Gompel

 Related:  What is enouigh time to build a casino? / Are amusement rides part of the real property? / “Busted” at Mall of America – a Lesson in Amusement Park Security  / Theme parks & resorts : Pondering safety and legal liability

 (see  Dutch Amusement Parks are Safer ) Of course the Authority reserves the right to visit these parks if something serious should happen.  For the other 16 amusement parks that the nVWA visits, they still remain on the Authority’s normal schedule of annual visits but at least they now have a precedent established that if they continue with a good safety record, they too may be visited less often.  The article went on to say that in the field of food and drinks, seven of the parks will be rarely seen by the nVWA.

 I’m sure a number of food and beverage managers in the industry are reading this fact with a twinge of jealousy, while others are just applauding the Food Safety Authority and the government of the Netherlands.  A government regulatory agency has decided to focus its attention on those entities whose performance merits regular monitoring while extending an incentive to the those entities that if their performance maintains high levels of compliance, they may also earn a break from a more rigorous compliance format.  Such thinking is a great win-win for everyone.  The people of the Netherlands through their government are insured quality products at the parks they visit while knowing that the Authority is focusing more of its efforts on those entities who need assistance in complying with established standards.  As for the parks, they get a reprieve for the hassles of annual compliance and can continue providing the excellent quality of food and beverage that they have always provided.