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London s year as a ghost city – and how our tourist hotspot could emerge from the pandemic
We re heading back to the bad old days of the nineties, suggests one hospitality leader
Piccadilly Circus, usually littered with tourists, stands empty at the start of the latest lockdown
Credit: Getty
Cast your mind back to last March 23, 2020. It was our first day we were told to “stay at home”. The city emptied of office workers. Tourists retreated. Some businesses were forced close. The exodus from London’s streets was stark. Images of an empty Piccadilly Square and deserted Regent Street filled newspaper pages.
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Photo Credit: Free-pics/Pixabay
A new survey carried out by hospitality and tourism industry associations in the UK reveals that if the current reduced rate of VAT of 5 per cent for businesses in the sector, including hotels and restaurants, reverts to the previous 20 per cent at the end of March as planned, some 310,000 jobs will be lost.
The survey of 1,144 businesses, carried out by UKHospitality, the Tourism Alliance and the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions under the banner of the Cut Tourism VAT (CTV) Campaign, looked at how businesses had used the cut in VAT announced by UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak in July 2020 and extended in September until March. The survey found that the majority of businesses used the savings to retain staff, pay suppliers or passed these on to customers.
More than 300,000 jobs across the hospitality and tourism sectors could be lost if the VAT rate reverts back to 20% in April 2021, trade bodies have warned.
Calls for insurance scheme intensify in industry letter
Thursday, 7 January 2021
A number of MPs and live event specialists have signed an open letter to Rishi Sunak in a bid to save summer events and more (Photo: Hanny Naibaho)
UK - The live events industry has launched a fresh appeal for a government-backed COVID-19 insurance scheme with a letter signed by 120 sector representatives and MPs. In the letter, written by the chair of the DCMS committee Julian Knight and addressed to the chancellor Rishi Sunak, the sector - which has largely been shut down since March 2020 - warns that “[w]ithout insurance, the events we know and love simply won’t take place this year - vaccine or no vaccine”. “Sustaining losses like those we’ve seen in 2020 for another year isn’t an option, and hundreds of businesses in the events supply chain have already been forced to fold,” the letter continues. “The Government has backed insurance for the film and television industry to the