CURRENT AND RECENT REPRESENTATIONS

Response of ATHE to consultation document ‘Review of Research Assessment’ (2002)

The Association for Tourism in Higher Education (ATHE) is the subject association for Tourism in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in the UK. Its membership of approximately 40 HEIs enables it to speak with authority on behalf of this sector. The Association wishes to stress the importance of tourism as a subject of study at UK HEIs where there are currently approximately 10,500 undergraduate, 700 postgraduate students and 70 doctoral students. Furthermore there are approximately 3000 students following higher education courses in tourism at FEIs (Further Education Institutions). ATHE would also like to stress the current and growing significance of tourism as an economic, social and cultural activity.

ATHE feels unable to reply on the point by point basis suggested by the consultation document since its points of difference are too significant but would like to make the following further comments:-

Key Point

The ATHE invites the committee to test the impact of its proposals on tourism research and consider

1. whether the proposed system will enable tourism research to develop or whether it will cause it to decline and

2. if the latter, whether this is desirable for economic, social or academic advancement.

General comment

1. The Roberts Review appears to support increased research selectivity. This is understandable in medicine for example where it would clearly not be sensible to support research at 3 or 4 rated levels given the existence of? 5*/6* rated research. But this assumption does not work for emerging areas of research such as tourism where current levels of research excellence rarely exceed 4. This also precludes collaboration with 5*/6* rated research centres.

2. Its approach appears to favour science and technology and well established research in traditional universities. Its scope does not seem to offer support for research in new fields or in new universities. Research for the services sector, including tourism, needs special consideration.

3. It over concentrates on the large, the powerful and the established at the expense of the new and emerging. A consequence of this is that it does not pay sufficient attention to the consequences of reduced / zero funding for those research groups, networks and communities, such as tourism, which will be adversely affected by its plans. For example, in tourism, the research community is also prominent in producing textbooks. This important link would be threatened. There is a growing cohort of PhD students in tourism (approximately149 PhDs were awarded 1990-1999). The academics who supervise these students need to be located in, and legitimised by, the wider UK research community. Career aspirations and motivations are highly influenced by research activity, indeed academic identity is often formed by research activity.

4. It does not attempt to identify value for money of smaller, emerging research groups. Some kind of cost-benefit analysis of would be welcome as a basis for evidence-based policy.

5. Its emphasis is on Research Quality Assessment with some explanation of Research Capability Assessment. There are no proposals for the separate approach for the least research intensive institutions so the needs of new and emerging areas of research have effectively been ignored.

Tourism

• Is one of the largest industries in the UK (the fifth largest in England), worth £74 billion to the UK economy in 2001, about 4.5% of the GDP. It is a major employer in the UK: 2.1 million people have jobs in this sector, which is 7% of the UK workforce. Some 10% of all new jobs created are in the tourism industry, which demonstrates the importance of this growing industry to the UK economy (Source: The Culture, Media and Sport Committee of the House of Commons: Fourth Report, Jan 2003)

• Is an increasingly important activity in peoples lives shaping identities and communities.

• Has been overlooked by policymakers as evidenced by the response to the Foot and Mouth crisis where agricultural interests were advanced at the expense of tourism. This demonstrates the lack of a research base on the economic impacts of tourism in comparison to agriculture.

Tourism research

• Has demonstrated a rising profile of research quality and outputs over previous RAEs

• Demonstrated glimmers of 5*, a limited number of 4 centres, but was mainly rated 3a / 3b in RAE 2001. In other words much tourism research is at least of national excellence.

• Is emerging and developing and needs to be designated as an emerging area with special funding for development

• Is characterised by small specialist research centres in less research research-intensive (and generally the new) universities.

• Has suffered a funding cut post RAE 2001

• Does not need huge sums of money to support it  a healthy amount of activity developed over the period 1996- 2002 with limited funding

• Is flourishing overseas (particularly in Australazia where a number of key UK academics now operate). UK research enjoys a high reputation internationally but this will be lost without continued support from funding councils.

• Supports a number of journals

• Supports a well established network of researchers who are key members of the tourism academic community in terms of curriculum development, internationalisation, and production of textbooks

• Was atomised by the last RAE since it fell between a number of panels

• Is not yet commensurate with enormous significance of tourism to the economy

What does tourism research need to prosper?

• A funding mechanism that will enable its critical mass to emerge and support its development into a research area of international excellence.

• The funding mechanism needs to address the following:

• Cohesion: RAE 2001 meant that tourism research was split across a number of areas so that any critical mass was lost.

• Visibility: The title tourism was not prominent in the RAE 2001 documentation

• Advocacy: There were no experts representing tourism either in the design or the implementation of RAE 2001

• Incubation: The special needs of a new and emerging area of research are different from those of established areas.

• If the new assessment regime fails to address these issues, research in the UK will ossify around those subject areas that happened by to be prominent around the year 2000. New areas such as tourism will be unable to emerge, survive or develop in the highly selective recommendations proposed by Roberts. 

Supporting documents:

The following documents are available in support of the ATHE submission:

• Botterill, D., 2002, Tourism Studies and Research Quality Assessment in UK Universities, Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism Education, 1(2):71-74.

• Botterill, D. and C. Haven, 2003, Tourism Studies and the Research Assessment Exercise 2001 (Guidelines No 11), Association for Tourism in Higher Education: Guildford.

• Tribe, J., 2003, The RAE-ification of Tourism Research in the UK, International Journal of Tourism Research, Vol. 5, pp. 225-234

Response of ATHE to Tourism Statistics Improvement Initiative (TSII) (2003)

ATHE assumes this is part of a bigger WTO initiative to standardise statistics across nations and ATHE confirms standardisation is a key point for academics, from both a teaching and research perspective. Students are endlessly tripped up by statistics from different countries (or even from the same country but from different years) which purport to indicate the same thing, but have actually been measured in quite different ways e.g. tourism revenue/spending, value of the tourism industry, contribution to GDP, tourism employment, multiplier effect data etc.

ATHE would wish to highlight the following issues:

• clear, reliable, up-to-date and comparable statistics across a consistent set of areas

• the means of measurement to be clearly expressed along with the data produced e.g. if we are giving statistics about incoming tourist to the UK, or about day trips, we need to have easy access to how these data were collected and which definitions we are using.

• some expression of the comparative accuracy/reliability of data should also be published - e.g. this is accurate to within =/- 5% or similar.

• the ability to compare between countries using the same measures and definitions would be ideal (as per WTO plans).

• better dissemination of data through key publications and via the web

• data to be able to make up TSAs for the UK and regionally

• colleagues involvement in the recent 'Intelligence Review - a Ten Year Strategy For the SW' sponsored by SW RDA conducted by The Tourism Company suggests this might be an exemplar for data management (Dorset New Forest Market Intelligence Project)

• the ability to disaggregate figures down to local levels and to sector levels. At present the figures can only provide national and occasionally regional pictures. This hardly provides a basis for knowing what is happening in tourism

• samples need to be big enough to allow confidence as well as disaggregation. The sizes are OK for the IPS data (although information is not collected for much disaggregation on the supply side) but the UKTS is based on very small samples which really do not permit much breakdown or analysis

• definitions used for international and domestic should follow the WTO definitions

• regular information on excursions (day-tripper) if we want to have a complete view of tourism

Response of ATHE to the White Paper "The Future of Higher Education" (2003)

The Association for Tourism in Higher Education (ATHE) is the subject association for Tourism in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in the UK. Its membership of approximately 40 HEIs enables it to speak with authority on behalf of this sector. The Association wishes to stress the importance of tourism as a subject of study at UK HEIs where there are currently approximately 10,500 undergraduate and 700 postgraduate students enrolled. Furthermore there are approximately 3000 students following higher education courses in tourism at FEIs (Further Education Institutions). ATHE would also like to stress the significance of tourism as an economic, social and cultural activity and make the following comments regarding the White Paper which are attached as a separate sheet.

Dr. Keith Wilkes,
Chair, ATHE.

ATHE's response to the Tourism Prospectus consultation draft (2004)

Tessa Jowell, the Culture Secretary on The 19th July 2004, launched ‘Tomorrow’s Tourism Today’, the joint Prospectus of the DCMS, the industry, the regions and local government.  The Prospectus sets out responsibilities and actions of key partners in tourism to deliver improvements in five areas: marketing and tourism; accommodation quality; workforce skills, data and advocacy.  The document sets out key drivers for moving the industry from a £76 billion a year to a £100 billion a year industry by 2010.  A new Tourism Review will oversee delivery of the Prospectus and Implementation Group (TRIG) chaired by the Minister, Richard Caborn and which will include membership from the Tourism academic sector.  ATHE made a submission in response to the consultation draft (see below) and some account has been taken of these comments. 

The Association for Tourism in Higher Education (ATHE) (formerly the NLG – The National Liaison Group for Tourism) is the subject association for Tourism in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in the UK. Its membership of approximately 40 HEIs enables it to speak with authority on behalf of this sector.

The ATHE welcomes the opportunity to comment on the Tourism Prospectus and will confine its response three key areas of direct interest to the Association:

1. Investment in Skills

1. The ATHE welcomes a commitment to improving the quality of the labour force engaged in tourism.

2. It supports the intention to raise the profile of careers and to encourage clear career development and progression.

3. The ATHE would recommend a clarification in the document as to whether it is concerned with craft/operational skills or higher level skills.

4. The comment "We want tourism to become the industry of career choice for many of our brightest and most ambitious people" suggests that there is a clear role for Higher Education here yet this seems to be completely missing from the subsequent objectives, which focus on the work of the Sector Skills Councils.

5. The ATHE strongly supports the development of higher level skills for the tourism industry.

6. In relation to this the ATHE wishes to underline the importance of Higher Education:

1. Tourism as an important and established subject of study at UK HEIs.

2. There are currently approximately 10,500 undergraduate and 700 postgraduate students in this area.

3. There were 9738 UCAS applications under the JACS subject line N8 for Tourism, Transport and Travel as of March 2004.

4. In 2003-04 there were 56 higher education institutions offering undergraduate Tourism programmes.

7. In summary the ATHE would strongly urge that the role of higher education in developing higher level skills for the tourism industry is made explicit in the Prospectus.
   
   

2. Data and research

   1. The ATHE strongly supports the commitment to improving the quality and availability of data.

   2. The Association would like to emphasise the role that tourism research in UK HEIs does and can play in this area.

      1. This role can contribute to the development of and collection of statistical sets to support the development of tourism

      2. ATHE would also strongly urge that the important role of research in developing wider knowledge about tourism is recognised. For example much of the impetus for sustainable tourism is driven by academic research in this area. Academic research can and does provide a place for the incubation of new ideas in tourism.
         

3. Advocacy

1. The ATHE welcomes the fifth priority for DCMS which is to strengthen the advocacy of tourism.

2. The Association would like to urge the DCMS to utilise the expertise and skills of Higher Education in promoting this

3. The ATHE would like to signal its interest in promoting the role of Higher Education in facilitating the proposed annual tourism industry conference.

Research and education in tourism is thriving in UK Higher Education and sets world class standards. In recognition of this the ATHE urges the DCMS to make the role and contribution of Higher Education explicit in its Prospectus in relation to the issues raised above. It would further urge the Department to ensure that each of the partner agencies referred to in the document is asked to incorporate Higher Education into their planning. The ATHE would be happy to offer itself as a point of contact between these agencies and tourism higher education.

With Best Wishes,
Yours sincerely
Professor John Tribe,
Chair, ATHE
(john.tribe@bcuc.ac.uk)

Response of ATHE to RAE 02/2004 Panel configuration and recruitment (2004)

The Association for Tourism in Higher Education (ATHE) (formerly the NLG – The National Liaison Group for Tourism) is the subject association for Tourism in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in the UK. Its membership of approximately 40 HEIs enables it to speak with authority on behalf of this sector.

The ATHE wishes to comment on all three areas where consultation is invited (panel configuration, pedagogic research and list of nominating bodies). This comment is based on a consultative exercise conducted by the ATHE with its members.

A Panel Configuration

The ATHE wishes to register a strong protest about the invisibility of Tourism Studies in the proposed UoAs for RAE 2008. It contests the claim that RAE 2008 will “recognise excellence … in new disciplines and in fields crossing traditional disciplinary boundaries”. For indeed tourism studies seems to represent the epitome of a new field and one that crosses traditional disciplinary boundaries and yet is ill-served by the proposed UoA structure for rae2008.  It therefore urges the funding councils to reconsider the current titles of UoAs and ensure that Tourism Studies is given the prominence it deserves.  This would be a separate UoA under panel H. It is felt that panel H represents the kind of multidisciplinary approach that typifies tourism studies. The ATHE believes there is compelling evidence to support such a move. This evidence is set out below:

1. Tourism research has reached a size of maturity, substance and importance in UK Higher Education.

   1. A significant number of outputs submitted under RAE 2001 came under the area of Tourism Studies. Taking only the most popular 7 UoAs, Botterill and Haven (2003) identified 363 tourism outputs by 146 staff.

   2. Taking account of all the UoAs, for both tourism and hospitality, around 500 outputs were submitted, equivalent to around 144 active researchers (Page, 2003).

   3. There was at least one tourism-related output in no less than 31 of the total of 69 UoAs in RAE 2001 (Tribe, 2003).

   4. The term "tourist/ism" was present in the title of a research output in no less than 92 higher education institutions in the UK. (Tribe, 2003).

   5. The Business and Management Panel of RAE 2001 stated that "The discipline base of tourism has resulted in a relatively mature body of work, with around 20 per cent of international quality.”

   6. There are currently approximately 90 tourism doctoral students. Indeed Botterill, Haven and Gale (2002) found "a substantive and expanding volume of doctoral studies related to tourism in UK universities" and discovered a total of 149 tourism doctoral theses submitted between 1990 and 1999.

   7. There are approximately 50 Professors in the area of Tourism Studies in the UK. 

   8. Tourism Studies is well established internationally. There are in excess of 37 journals which publish more than 500 research articles each year. These include the influential and highly respected Annals of Tourism Research and Journal of Travel Research.

   9. Tourism research is increasing in the UK
      
      

2. Tourism as an important and established subject of study at UK HEIs. Tourism programmes require a thriving research environment to support the development of knowledge in this area.

   1. There are currently approximately 10,500 undergraduate and 700 postgraduate students.

   2. There were 9738 UCAS applications under the JACS subject line N8 for Tourism, Transport and Travel as of March 2004.

   3. In 2003-04 there were 56 higher education institutions offering undergraduate Tourism programmes. (Stuart-Hoyle, 2004).
      
      

3. On the basis of the data supplied in paragraphs 1 and 2 the ATHE believes that a case is made for a separate UoA in absolute terms. However it wishes also to note that in comparative terms it would raise questions of injustice and inequity if Tourism Studies were not to earn its own UoA in the face of what appear to be less significant areas of research which have retained separate UoAs (e.g. Celtic Studies and Italian).
   
   

4. Other HE classifications now identify tourism as a distinct category (e.g. the LTSN supports a separate cluster of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism, the QAA identifies a similar cluster of subjects and JACS codes identify tourism separately as a second level classification.))

5. Tourism is a significant activity in the UK economy and society.

1. t “… is one of the largest industries in the UK (the fifth largest in England), worth £74 billion to the UK economy in 2001, about 4.5% of the GDP. It is a major employer in the UK: 2.1 million people have jobs in this sector, which is 7% of the UK workforce. Some 10% of all new jobs created are in the tourism industry, which demonstrates the importance of this growing industry to the UK economy” (Source: The Culture, Media and Sport Committee of the House of Commons: Fourth Report, Jan 2003).

2. It is an increasingly important activity in people’s lives shaping identities and communities.

3. It is an important source of environmental impacts.

4. However limited tourism research takes place outside of Universities. Private sector research is limited in a fragmented industry. The Department of Culture Media and Sport has limited research capacity and Visit Britain (the national tourism organisation) recently abandoned its research and intelligence function.

6. Tourism was virtually invisible in RAE 2001. The whole of the document "Assessment panels’ criteria and working methods" (RAE, 2001) was searched for the word "tourism". There was just one occurrence (in a document of 148,397 words) under UoA 34 (Town and Country Planning). This meant that tourism research was spread around a number of UoAs. The lack of a discrete UoA for tourism in RAE 2001 (and the proposed repetition of this for rae2008) has (and will continue to) lead to a number of problems:

1. Any moves towards a more cohesive tourism field of research will be frustrated. Tourism researchers will be forced to account for the merits of their work not to their immediate peers but to their distant academic cousins in the established disciplines that dominate the UoAs.

2. It would appear from the 2001 RAE that it is the discourses of Business and Management and Geography that have gained ascendancy over tourism research This has vital implications not only for the development of tourism as a separate cognate area, but also for the practice of tourism research. In other words, the discourse of the RAE and specifically its structuring of UoA panels and choice of experts for peer review will determine the epistemological development and practice of tourism research. In the RAE, Tourism is not able to speak for itself, but is required to speak through the discourses of (e.g.) Business and Management and Geography. We may therefore expect the UK tourism research agenda to be largely constituted by understandings offered by Business and Management and Geography. This will surely strengthen a movement noted by Tribe (1997:654) that "the business world of tourism is pushing out at the expense of other parts [of tourism]."

3. Tourism studies is not merely a subset of business studies. It represents a research area rich in complexities and inter-disciplinary opportunities.

4. There is already much anecdotal evidence that RAE 2008 is having negative consequences for tourism studies. Researchers are being asked to fit their work to business and management studies and are being asked to publish in business and management journals.

5. This will have profound implications for the volume and level of manuscripts sent to tourism journals and the development of tourism as a separate cognate area.

6. In particular a notable feature of the development of tourism research has been its maturing from a narrow business focus to a broad multidisciplinary study which better reflects the extraordinary impact the subject has on people and place. The current configuration of RAE 2008 is likely to force the subject back into the narrow confines of business and management with a serious loss of insight into the complexity of the subject. The research base that provides insights and analysis of tourism as a significant economic and social and cultural activity will be weakened.

7. Tourism research was atomised by RAE 2001 where outputs were split across a number of areas so that any critical mass was lost.

8. The absence of tourism in past RAEs seems to preclude its presence in the future. There is no advocate of tourism apparent in the planning for RAE 2008. There appears to be no route through which outsiders can enter or influence the established system.

9. Tourism research leadership will pass from the UK to our international competitors.

7. Additionally the ATHE notes a change in focus of UoA 69 (Sports related subjects). Many non-business tourism researchers felt more comfortable submitting under this UoA in 2001 because of its reference to “leisure” in its panel description. However it is noted that in the proposals for rae2008, Sports related subjects is renumbered UoA 13 and included in panel C. This appears to herald a significant change in the emphasis of this UoA as it now sits with Nursing and health subjects and would appear to lose its broader social science appeal. This is likely to further exclude tourism researchers.
   

8. Finally it appears to the ATHE that there is a fundamental flaw in the proposals for UoA/Panel constitution for rae2008. The previous RAE prided itself on its transparency, an aim which is to be applauded. But it is difficult to locate transparency in the rae2008 UoA/Panel proposals. For there do not appear to be criteria published which establish the rules for constituting a UoA. What are the grounds for inclusion and exclusion? Have the funding councils attempted to gather research of the type offered in paragraph 1 above? The lack of criteria makes an appeal against the proposals difficult. The ATHE believes that it has made a strong case – but it is largely operating in the dark. For without clear criteria it is not possible to ensure that the case for tourism is made most effectively.

A. References

• Botterill D.; Haven C.; Gale T. (2002) A Survey of Doctoral Theses Accepted by Universities in the UK and Ireland for Studies Related to Tourism, 1990-1999, Tourist Studies, 2(3): 283-311.
• Botterill, D. and Haven, C. (2003) Tourism Studies and the Research Assessment Exercise 2001 (Guidelines No. 11), Farnham: ATHE.
• Page, S. (2003) Evaluating research performance in tourism: the UK experience, Tourism Management, 24: 607–622.
• Stuart-Hoyle, M. (2004) 1993-2003 Critical Incidents: Tourism in Higher Education (Guidelines No. 12), Farnham: ATHE.
• Tribe, J. (1997) The indiscipline of tourism, Annals of Tourism Research, 24(3):638-657
• Tribe, J. (2003) The RAE-ification of Tourism Research in the UK, International Journal of Tourism Research,  5:225-234.

B. Pedagogic Research

The ATHE recognises the issue of how best to assess the quality of research in the pedagogy of higher education highlighted in RAE 01/2004. There is a growing body of literature on pedagogy in tourism education. Indeed the subject supports no less than 3 journals devoted to this area, one of which is UK based.

The view of the ATHE is that this research would best be reviewed under the single UoA for tourism proposed above.

C. The list of nominating bodies

• The ATHE confirms that its contact details are correct.
• The National Liaison Group for Higher Education in Tourism no longer exists – it has become the ATHE.
• The ATHE does not wish to recommend any further additions to the list.

The ATHE is grateful for the opportunity afforded by the Joint Funding Councils to submit the above comments.

Professor John Tribe,
Chair, ATHE

Response of ATHE to the Joint Academic Coding (JACS) review (2004)

ATHE welcomed the opportunity to respond to the recommendations for the review of JACS codes in June this year (see below). 

HESA/UCAS Review of the Joint Academic Coding System

Many thanks for affording the opportunity for ATHE to respond to the recommendations for the review of JACS codes. The paper was discussed by the Executive. My apologies for the lateness of our response, which is as follows:

• There is agreement with proposal to bring together Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and Tourism subjects under the N800 code.
• From the tourism point of view the proposal to change the N800 level heading from Tourism, Transport and Travel to Leisure and Transport Studies represents a regressive move which we do not support.
• A new N800 heading of Tourism and Leisure Studies would be supported.
• In the N800 sub-heading delete 'the' and 'industries' to make it  'The study of hospitality, leisure, sport, tourism, transport and travel’
• N830 and N840 should be merged, as the separation makes no sense. The title should be Tourism Studies. The short descriptor should not confine itself to the tourism industry. A better short descriptor would be: ' The study of tourism, destinations and the tourism industry, and their development and management in the UK and worldwide'
• Alternatively N830 could be designated The Tourism Industry (The study of the world-wide tourism industry) and N840 could be designated Tourism Studies (The worldwide study of tourism and its development).

With Best Wishes,

Prof. John Tribe
Chair, ATHE

RAE Declaration (2005)

In continuing its efforts to respond to higher education issues and policies on behalf of the membership, The Association recently made the following comments in relation to the Consultation on RAE 2008 draft criteria and working methods (July 2005).

• ATHE welcomes the opportunity to include pedagogic research under specific UoAs.
• ATHE welcomes the encouragement given to new researchers
• ATHE is disappointed that tourism has not been given the prominence it deserves in the structure of RAE commensurate with its current research size and its significance as an economic and social activity.
• ATHE is pleased to note that “tourism studies” is explicitly included in the descriptor for UoA 46.
• ATHE would urge that tourism specialists are available to provide advice to all panels to which substantive submissions of tourism research are made. ATHE would also urge that such persons have a broad knowledge enabling an understanding of the multidisciplinary nature of the subject
• ATHE would urge that careful consideration is given to the ratings of journals for tourism. In particular it notes that the Business and Management community produce rankings which sometimes include tourism but without a full understanding of the nature of the subject. In particular the relative youth of the subject means that tourism journals can be discriminated against and this can make it difficult for the subject to demonstrate international excellence. The Association would urge that a mechanism is found whereby the tourism academic community is able to provide input into the rating of its journals.
• ATHE would urge that consideration is given to ensuring parity of treatment of tourism research as a whole irrespective of the UoA to which it is submitted.

Professor John Tribe,
Chair, ATHE: Association for Tourism in Higher Education

Response of ATHE to the  Subject Benchmark Review  (2006)

The process of review is being coordinated by the appropriate subject association(s) for each subject and is being overseen by QAA. Revised statements will be subject to full consultation beginning Spring 2006 with a view to publication not later than December 2006. Statements published in 2002 (including ours) will be reviewed and revised in 2007.(QAA, 2006).  Following consultation with the members and discussions at  Executive meetings, the Chair, Lyn Bibbings, attended a number of review group meetings and contributed to revisions to both the genericl areas of the statement for all HLST  subjects and to the specific benchmarks for tourism.
The Executive agree that the revised benchmark statement will be circulated widely for consultation by the Association and by the QAA.

Response from ATHE to the Tourism Inquiry by DCMS

Association of Tourism in Higher Education (ATHE)
C/- Professor Peter Burns
Centre for Tourism Policy Studies
University of Brighton
BN20 7UR
www.athe.org.uk

Culture, Media and Sport Committee
House of Commons
7 Millbank
London SW1P 3JA

Tourism Inquiry
Submission from Association of Tourism in Higher Education

1. ATHE: what we are, what we do
1.1 The Association for Tourism in Higher Education (formerly the National Liaison Group for Tourism in Higher Education (NLG) was established following a national conference held in London in October 1993. After seven years and against the backdrop of a rapidly changing higher education landscape and more importantly, with increased involvement by Government agencies in education there was a growing need for a "subject association" to represent tourism.. De facto NLG was increasingly carrying on the role of a subject association. This was best demonstrated by the request that it represent tourism in the Quality Assurance Agency's Benchmarking exercise in 2000. As a result the decision was taken at the AGM held in December 2000 to revise the organisation's constitution and to change its name to the Association for Tourism in Higher Education.

1.2 As a mature organisation, and a Learned Society of the Academy of Social Sciences, we see our role increasingly as one that promotes the contribution of university level tourism education and research to an innovative and competitive sector sensitive to the needs of the full range of tourism stakeholders. In formal terms, our objectives are as follows:

• To act as the Subject Association for tourism in higher education in the UK
• To promote the development and recognition of tourism as a subject of study in the UK and liaise as appropriate with other European Union countries and internationally
• To encourage high standards in learning, teaching and research
• To identify and communicate 'good practice', statistics and other information about first degrees and postgraduate qualifications in tourism
• To liaise with other bodies concerned with higher education in tourism
• To support, undertake and disseminate research to further these objectives
• To maintain links between education on the one hand, and employers and other interested bodies on the other

The Chair of ATHE is Lyn Bibbings, Department of Hospitality, Leisure and Tourism,  Business School, Oxford Brookes University.  Lyn is also a non-Executive Director of Tourism South East, and Tourism Liaison Officer for the Higher Education Academy.

2. Tourism in Higher Education
2.1 Higher education tourism provision (including HE in FE colleges) takes place in 120 institutions (see Annex 1). The total population of students enrolled on the principal Joint Academic Coding Scheme JACS subject ‘N8’, i.e. ‘Tourism Transport and Travel’ according to HESA records for 2004/05 was 11,180.  Table 1: provides an overview of this population at the four-digit JACS code level.

Table 1: Enrolments in Tourism Transport and Travel 2004/05

2.2 Tourism is located, inter alia, in HE business schools, departments of geography, anthropology, sociology and media/ cultural studies. Topics taught can be ranged along a continuum with the two poles being characterised as ‘tourism as business’ and ‘tourism as problem.’ In other words, student experience varies from straightforward studies about the management and quantitative analysis of the sector to hard-edged critical appraisal of its impacts-especially in developing countries. In addition to the undergraduate provision, HE also offers a range of Masters level programmes and PhDs.

3 Tourism research in HE
3.1 It is fair to say that globally, the UK is a leading producer of high quality academic journal articles and other research outputs. Our intellectual competitors are Australia and New Zealand. Tourism in both these countries contributes significantly to their international identity and national economy – as reflected in consistent and generous government tourism research funding. However, it is paradoxical that while in the UK, the quality of academic tourism research is unquestionably good, the public  funding of this research is fragmented and inconsistent, leading to a lack of empirical work. For example, analysis of Economic and Social Research Council’s grants for the last 25 years reveals that only nine grants have been awarded to tourism studies and only four post-doctoral awards have been made. In no way does this reflect the vital role that tourism plays in the economic and social life of the nation.

3.2 However, the ESRC now recognises that as tourism is such an important part of the economy, and an integral part of society, research that brings together academics and the users of research, should be funded.  To this end ATHE have been working with ESRC to develop mechanisms to achieve this.

3.3 This is not yet reflected in other funding programmes.  For example, in 2004 a major five year programme called ‘Rural Economy and Land Use-(RELU) was launched by Research Councils UK (RCUK). RELU describes itself as an:

…unprecedented collaboration between the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). It has a budget of £24 million, with additional funding provided by the Scottish Executive Environment and Rural Affairs Department and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.” (http://www.relu.ac.uk/about/)

RELU is predicated on following terms:

…Rural areas in the UK are experiencing a period of considerable change. The Rural Economy and Land Use Programme aims to advance understanding of the challenges caused by this change today and in the future. Interdisciplinary research is being funded between 2004 and 2009 in order to inform policy and practice with choices on how to manage the countryside and rural economies. (http://www.relu.ac.uk/about/)

Given RELU’s logo of “Harnessing the sciences for sustainable rural development” it is nothing short of astonishing that not only is there no major tourism strand (given that tourism –as the economic impact of Foot and Mouth demonstrated- is probably more important to the rural economy than agriculture) but there is no tourism research. When asked about this, the programme director, Professor Philip Lowe said

…We have no specific projects on tourism but we do have projects on countryside leisure and recreation including a holistic study of angling and its links with the river environment (led by Oughton), and two projects on disease risks for visitors to the countryside (Killham on E-coli and Quine on tick-borne diseases). (Email correspondence Burns/ Lowe, 12th March 2007).

Having briefly set the scene of tourism education and research in higher education we now turn to the specific issues raised by the Select Committee. It is important to note that ATHE is more interested in some aspects rather than others so the Select Committee issues will not be treated equally.

4 The challenges and opportunities for the domestic and inbound tourism industries, including cheap flights abroad, and their impact on traditional tourist resorts

4.1 Challenges: Limited public sector funding for tourism and high number (80-90%)of private sector SMEs and micro-businesses with budget constraints militating against marketing partnerships.  Regional and sub-regional parochialism amongst local authorities working against joined-up thinking and need for collaboration to compete as UK entity. Provision of value for money experiences; quality of customer care and service; realities of unreliable weather patterns and the need for ‘intelligent’ (i.e. not games and arcades) wet weather leisure provision that goes beyond cloned shopping malls. Some ‘lifestyle business’ operators are satisfied with ‘making a living’ rather than ‘making a business’ leading to motivational problems in improving service quality and business efficiency. Some research indicates a general lack of innovation in the sector leaving it unable to satisfy the demand for peak experiences sought out by tourists.

4.2 Opportunities: Window of opportunity with an ageing (baby-boomer) population and disposable incomes suggesting demand for additional holidays and short breaks that might be taken in UK.  VFR travel and day visits markets are continually under-exploited in UK. Growing interest in health/ lifestyle holidays also links in with demographic trend; heritage tourism; short break markets; activity holidays. However, the research is predicated on markets and marketing rather than addressing research questions in a scientific manner. The major opportunity is for the tourism sector to work much more closely with the HE sector in driving innovation and productivity. Universities could also work with the sector to use environmental concerns about carbon footprints to promote ‘holidays at home’. But this would need a framework and funding.

4.3 Low cost carriers: This needs intense, non-partisan, multi-disciplinary research. Some indicative research indicates that the impact of low cost carriers is positive for local airports but has little effect on local destinations.

4.4 Resorts: Governments are the only stakeholders that can reverse the decline in resorts, in partnership with private sector. The situation is not good. To cite evidence from Shaun Woodward MP, Minister for Creative Industries and Tourism (Memorandum by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) (CT 64)) to Select Committee on Communities and Local Government Committee dated 27 November 2006:
Domestic Visitors: Visits to the English coast by domestic visitors create around £4.8 billion of expenditure. This is made up of:

• 17% of overnight stays and around £3.6 billion of expenditure. [in 2005, 19.3 million overnight trips were made by UK residents to the English seaside. On these trips, a total of 83.3 million nights were spent.]
• An estimated 7% of day trips and around 5% of spend (approximately £1.2 billion) [The latest figures for day visits cover the 2002-03 period at present, and these show that there were 1.1 billion tourism day visits in Great Britain, of which 7% were to the seaside or coast.
• The average spend per visit for tourism day trips to the seaside and coast was £18.50. markedly lower than the average spend for tourism day visits to either cities or the countryside (£30.80 and £20.70 respectively).]

4.5 One interpretation on these last data (spending patterns) is that visitors find nothing worthwhile to spend their money on (the lack of innovation argument). This interpretation is of course speculative because there is no empirical qualitative base from which to work.

5 The effectiveness of DCMS and its sponsored bodies (such as VisitBritain) in supporting the industry

5.1 DCMS suffers from having a very small staff responsible for tourism and changing staff leading to a loss of knowledge and expertise.  Similarly the frequent changes in Ministerial responsibility has led to a lack of experience evident at this level. This has meant there has been a real lack of progress in terms of both data collection and analysis and in policy formulation and implementation.  Universities could have a role to play in remedying this situation but there needs to be funding to allow this.  There is also little or no funding available to allow the initiation (through DTI) of Knowledge Transfer Partnerships in tourism.

5.2 VisitBritain has suffered a declining budget for many years, and although its functions have been reduced to be primarily responsible for marketing Britain, other functions it previously had, notably research and training, have not been effectively taken on by other organizations leading to a serious gap in data available for the industry.  This is particularly important in an industry dominated by SME’s which do not have either the resources or expertise to carry out research on the scale necessary to provide data to inform strategic decision making.  This does raise the question about how evidence based policies can be developed.

5.3 Some ATHE members (in the North and Midlands) felt that in their dealings with the tourism industry a perception of VisitBritain being London-centric and out-of-touch with regions persisted.  Funding and support for soft initiatives such as training and marketing remains an issue for SMEs and micro-businesses in tourism. A member from Scotland said “There have long been, and remain, very strong feelings indeed within Scotland that, despite the fact that Tourism is the country’s most important industry, we still do not have a dedicated Minister. Moreover, turnover in those holding the Tourism portfolio has been very high indeed over recent years.”

5.4 More needs to be undertaken to ensure tourism has a collective voice and clear recognition that it is valued by ministers and government departments with funding to support that view.

6 The structure and funding of sponsored bodies in the tourism sector, and the effectiveness of that structure in promoting the UK both as a whole and in its component parts

6.1 Responses from members to this issue tended to be conflated with 5 (above). For example, an ATHE member from Sheffield noted that the Yorkshire Tourist Board is still accused of over-representing North Yorkshire rather than the full region.  The loss of the coherent framework of national and regional tourist boards has led to increased fragmentation of responsibilities across tourist boards, RDA’s and DMO’s, and, in particular a lack of any coherent framework of responsibility for national data collection and analysis and national training programmes. 

6.2 The position of “England” within the UK structure (which has separate tourist bodies for Wales and Scotland) creates an inconsistency that can only damage the success of England and hence of the whole UK both in attracting and retaining tourists and in achieving a coordinated and efficient approach to responding to the challenges raised by tourism. This is exacerbated by the location of tourism within the remit of the RDAs, which take different approaches and express different levels of interest in tourism. This means that different provision for tourism, in matters from funding research to promotion, is made in different regions.

6.3 In the case of Scotland, it is generally felt that, given its strategic importance to the Scottish economy, Tourism remains relatively neglected and under-funded. Whilst VisitScotland is broadly regarded as doing its best with the resources available, it is further felt that there is also a need for a more integrated and effective approach towards promoting the UK and its component parts.

6.4 Likewise, Welsh members of ATHE felt that the impact of what was generally considered a very effective WTB being absorbed into WAG has yet to be seen.

6.5 Funding bodies do not always reach down to grass roots level to see effective partnerships.

6.6 It remains questionable that development agencies have grasped the significance of tourism sector there is continued confusion over strategic direction and communication.

7 The effect of the current tax regime (including VAT and Air Passenger Duty) and proposals for local government funding (including the “bed tax”) upon the industry’s competitiveness

7.1 The UK is a high cost destination (for example public transport costs are among the highest in the world). In this respect, direct taxation on tourism (unless it is hypothecated to addressing specific needs like training, marketing and environmental concerns) damages our competitiveness.

7.2 But, the consideration of the tax regime should not be couched solely in terms of competitiveness. Tax revenues are a significant government benefit from tourism.

7.3 As widely discussed within the industry press of late, there is widespread concern, indeed disbelief, with regard to the mounting taxation burden. In particular, the recent introduction of Airport Departure Tax is considered to be especially ill-judged and flawed in its underpinning justification.

7.4 However, scientific (unbiased) research needs to be undertaken to demonstrate how the imposition of taxes is making the UK less attractive as a European destination.

8 What data on tourism would usefully inform Government policy on tourism
8.1 This question caused much concern to members, many of whom spent time and effort responding to the 2004 Allnutt report on tourism statistics. At that time, the ATHE submission included the following observations:

8.1.1 ATHE assumes that the review of tourism statistics is part of a bigger UN World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) initiative to standardise statistics across nations and ATHE confirms standardisation is a key point for academics, from both a teaching and research perspective. Students are endlessly tripped up by statistics from different countries (or even from the same country but from different years) which purport to indicate the same thing, but have actually been measured in quite different ways e.g. tourism revenue/spending, value of the tourism industry, contribution to GDP, tourism employment, multiplier effect data etc.

8.1.2 ATHE would wish to highlight the following issues:

• Clear, reliable, up-to-date and comparable statistics across a consistent set of areas
• The means of measurement to be clearly expressed along with the data produced e.g. if we are giving statistics about incoming tourist to the UK, or about day trips, we need to have easy access to how these data were collected and which definitions being used.
• Some expression of the comparative accuracy/ reliability of data should also be published - e.g. ‘this is accurate to within =/- 5%’ or similar.
• The ability to compare between countries using the same measures and definitions would be ideal (as per UNWTO plans).
• Better dissemination of data through key publications and via the web
• Data to be able to make up Tourism Satellite Accounts (TSA) for the UK and regionally
• The ability to disaggregate figures down to local levels and to sector levels. At present the figures can only provide national and occasionally regional pictures. This hardly provides a basis for knowing what is happening in tourism
• Samples need to be big enough to allow confidence as well as disaggregation. The sizes are acceptable for the IPS data (although information is not collected for much disaggregation on the supply side) but the UKTS is based on very small samples which really do not permit much breakdown or analysis
• Definitions used for international and domestic should follow the UNWTO definitions
• Regular information on excursions (day-tripper) if we want to have a complete view of tourism

8.2 Responses to ATHE made to the present inquiry elicited the following:

8.2.1 More detailed regional and sub-regional comparable trend data (even rudimentary volume & value data is still lacking)

8.2.2 More widely circulated economic value data (perhaps bottom up rather than ‘weighted down’ = more helpful, particularly at sub-regional & local levels).

8.2.3 ITC resource needed such as a tourism monitor for industry and researchers to subscribe to (a more sophisticated Englandnet?)  More user-friendly tourism research points of contact for SME advice/problem-solving?

8.2.4 Lack of data and reliable key performance indicators is hampering any real long term planning. Local data is far from accurate to influence investors and other stakeholders.

8.2.5 There is a major opportunity for RDAs, and the various regional constituent bodies of DCMS along with VisitBritain to work in long term collaborative partnership with universities to produce, analyse and disseminate high quality qualitative and quantitative data on tourism. This could be on a region by region basis within a generic framework using agreed generic methodologies and modes of analysis.

9 The practicality of promoting more environmentally friendly forms of tourism

9.1 We are somewhat surprised at the wording of this issue. It is as though ‘promoting more environmentally forms of tourism’ was an option. It is not a matter of weighing up the ‘practicalities’ but of creating intelligent, innovative tourism products with a low carbon footprint. Such innovation needs to be based on scientific research and training along with public information dissemination about the need to embrace a less damaging approach to using (as tourism does) the environment for leisure purposes. Changing behaviour is the key to this and members of the ATHE (Burns at Brighton and Bibbings at Brookes) have completed a conceptual paper on the issue of managing demand and consumer behaviour as mitigation for climate change and tourism that can be made available as an additional submission to the Committee should they so wish.

10 How to derive maximum benefit for the industry from the London 2012 Games

10.1 Joined-up thinking and inter-regional collaborations needed rather than internal competition.

10.2 Needs to be based upon carefully considered and well-structured research, in such aspects as case study analyses of previous destinations where the Games have been mounted.

10.3 Focus on the medium term influences of Olympics on tourism as well as accepting the nature of mega events that may hinder tourism.

11 General comments about the value of tourism in HE

11.1 Members sometimes feel that it is an under-valued subject area.  The multidisciplinary and theoretical bases are often overlooked or misunderstood.  There is a need to understand the wider context of tourism and its associated potential benefits for the economy, environmental science/environmental initiatives (eg. Carbon offset projects, climate change etc.) and the social and political implications within context of globalization.

11.2 Without high quality research and associated programmes of study, the tourism sector will be limited in the extent to which it can innovate and meet the needs of all its stakeholders and ultimately remain both sustainable and competitive

11.3 Skills are needed for the sector to be competitive. Future managers need to be equipped with ‘graduate skills’ so that the industry can improve its standing and image as a worthwhile sector to gain employment.

12 final comments

12.1 ATHE is a member of the Tourism Alliance, we have seen the final draft of their submission and fully endorse it.

12.2 Finally, a review of the make-up and structures of DCMS committees and advisory inputs seems to suggest that there is very little call on the existing expertise of tourism professors and other senior academic staff. Much the same applies to Regional Development Agencies and the sponsored tourism bodies of DCMS. Such researchers have knowledge, talent and enthusiasm and they should be an essential part of any tourism planning and policy arena (an example is ‘British Tourism Development Committee’). It is hard to imagine another industry or economic sector where the scientific/ academic community is effectively excluded from policy advice.

ANNEX 1 - Institutions offering tourism HE courses in 2007

Source: www.ucas.com (Accessed 04.09.2006)