Tourism will become focal ‘when euro breaks up’
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Douglas McWilliams, CEO and Founder of the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) has said tourism in Europe will change once the euro currency ‘breaks up’. Speaking at ABTA’s Travel Matters conference, McWilliams predicted: “The euro will break up, it’s simply a matter of when. Tourism will start to become more competitive again when currencies are reintroduced”. He continued to say the value of the pound and euro would decline until this happens. “We’ll see tourism as a focal industry. It won’t nessecarily be cheap but it will be value-added and there will be more on offer,” commented McWilliams. These claims come at a point when the world is in recovery from the recession and the public begin to loosen their purse-strings. “Consumers are starting to change focus,” said McWilliams. “Originally they had the basics and squeezed on luxuries, such as holidays, but now some people want to have fun.” However, the ABTA said customer satisfaction had been affected by the volcanic ash disruption. “Consumers are probably less confident since the ash crisis, which is why there has been lower bookings,” revealed ABTA Chief Executive Mark Tanzer. “Our core destinations are not flying well at the moment.” Amongst these destinations were Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Greece, which have all faced financial difficulties. “Greece particularly struggled because it has no exports other than tourism,” explained McWilliams. He also said a debt crisis is likely to happen in Spain soon. Meanwhile on a global scale, he cited Asia as the reason behind the growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP). “China bounced back so fast that very little shows of its economic troubles and it boosted the GDP by 12%,” explained McWilliams. He added this would create new destinations for the UK as the majority share of GDP shifts from West to East. “The Western share of GDP dropped under 50% this year although it was predicted to happen in 2014,” confirmed McWilliams.
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