Tourism Still Key Element To Seaside Regeneration
Gordon has highlighted the key role the tourist industry continues to play in the economy of Blackpool and other seaside towns on the back of a major new report showing that it remains a substantial and growing employer.
Gordon was speaking to the annual conference of the British Resorts and Destinations Association, whose membership covers local authorities and tourist organisations across England and Wales, and of which he has just been re-elected as Honorary President.
The new report from a team at Sheffield Hallam University led by Professor Steve Fothergill shows that Blackpool has the largest single concentration of seaside tourist jobs – nearly 19,000 out of a total of over 200,000 countrywide – and that there’s been an overall growth of nearly 20,000 jobs in the industry since the late 1990s.
‘Seaside towns need to use the new Fothergill statistics to re-emphasise to the new Government why they need to continue co-ordinated efforts to promote regeneration in coastal towns like Blackpool and others, despite the tight economic climate' Gordon said.
'We all need to work together across party political divides to push for joined up hub-and-spokes tourism which can increase visitor numbers and stays by including their heritage and leisure hinterland. We need to continue pressing hard on the double Summer Time proposal and an extra Autumn half term bank holiday which would generate more income for seaside economies.
We also need to make sure that initiatives announced by the last Government in their Securing The Future For Seaside Economies document earlier this year – such as increased lottery opportunities for pier and public space improvements and the Sea Changes programme(which brought Blackpool its funding for the new Tower Headland) – survive.
These Fothergilll statistics show that investment in seaside towns like the Government-Council deal over the Tower and Winter Gardens is not futile, despite the deprivation and transience issues – but we have to make sure all the time that regeneration initiatives work to benefit residents just as much as visitors.’
