Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
tourism more fully and shows just how dramatic the
growth has been in the last 50 years.
Duty (APD), the Future of Air Transport White Paper
and the development of UK tourism strategies.
Development of Tourism Act
1000
The government passed the Development of Tourism
Act in 1969. This fi rst piece of UK legislation on
tourism, now more than 40 years old, still applies
today, although the nature and scale of the sector have
changed dramatically. The main outcomes of the Act
were:
800
600
400
1.
The establishment of the British Tourist Authority
(now VisitBritain), English Tourist Board (now part of
VisitBritain), Wales Tourist Board (now Visit Wales)
and Scottish Tourist Board (now Visit Scotland);
200
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2001
2005
2006
2009
2.
The introduction of 'section 4' grants for tourist
Source: WTO
developments;
Fig 1.14 - Growth in international tourism
1950 - 2009
3.
The establishment of a hotel development grants
scheme;
4.
Legislation to introduce a compulsory registration
Recent developments in travel and tourism can be
grouped under the following headings:
scheme for accommodation.
The present government has been talking for some
time about introducing a new tourism Act, but little
progress has been made to date.
•
Legislation;
•
Product development;
Package Travel Regulations
•
Destination development;
The Package Travel Regulations came into force on
1 January 1993 in the then 12 countries that were
members of the European Union. The main aim of the
regulations is to give people buying package holidays
from tour operators more protection and access to
compensation when things go wrong, for example
when a hotel is overbooked or a coach booked to
transfer passengers fails to turn up. The regulations
mean that tour operators can no longer claim that
problems with a package holiday are outside of their
control. The recent travel problems caused by volcanic
ash from the Icelandic volcano have highlighted the
important benefi ts to travellers of these regulations.
•
Technological development;
•
Transport development;
•
Lifestyle changes;
•
Working patterns.
In the following sections of this unit we explore each of
these factors in greater detail.
Legislation
Legislation refers to the many laws, rules and regulations
that UK governments and the European Union (EU)
introduce. Since the 1960s, key legislation affecting
travel and tourism has included the Development of
Tourism Act, Package Travel Regulations, Air Passenger
Air Passenger Duty (APD)
Air Passenger Duty was introduced by the UK
government in 2004 as a way of helping to reduce the
growth of air travel and its environmental impacts, as
