Published earlier this year, Walpole’s tourism manifesto, What it’s Worth: Enabling the Return of the £30bn High-End Tourism Sector, identified the UK as having been Europe’s number one high-end tourism destination pre-pandemic. Given that affluent international visitors to the UK spend 14 times that of mass tourists – making a powerful contribution not only to the country’s world-leading hotels, but to the whole high-end ecosystem of culture, entertainment, and retail – and with the knowledge that our high-end tourism offer generated more than 30% more revenue than France, Italy or Spain, and two thirds more than either Germany or Switzerland, we see high-end tourism as a crucial growth driver for this country. In the light of the Chancellor’s recent decision to reverse the decision to reintroduce tax-free shopping, Walpole asked its members to share their thoughts on the value of the high-end visitor, and to let us know what they were doing in their own businesses to drive the appeal for this important customer group.
If your company has been affected by the reversal on the reintroduction of tax-free shopping and you would like to be featured in this series, please email [email protected]
"Goodwood, set in 12,000 acres in the heart of West Sussex has been home to the same family for 300 years. All the sports at Goodwood exist through passions of the family, horse racing, motor racing, flying, shooting, cricket and golf. Supporting these are the hotel, historic motor circuit, private members club and the largest lowland organic farm in England.
"For a business built on events and hospitality, Covid was catastrophic. We had to innovate and be as creative as possible for our partners and customers. This resulted in us designing a ‘made for TV’ show SpeedWeek in 2020, broadcast live on ITV1 over the weekend. Combined with the lack of events over the past couple of years and learnings from SpeedWeek, ticket sales for this year’s Festival are up 25 per cent.
"Our restaurants and hotel have remained busy with 85 per cent to 90 per cent occupancy since the relaxation of COVID restrictions and we haven’t seen a slowdown in that. But there are some challenges, mainly the availability of good people. We all understand the reasons why this has happened, but to run our businesses successfully, we need to recruit from a wider talent pool to enable us to find the right people for those roles.
"Goodwood has a very strong culture; it isn’t just about finding somebody who can do the job. It’s about getting somebody who is passionate what they do."
