Government takes flak over holidays campaign

Many people will have happily ignored the government's advice to only holiday in Britain in 2012 and jumped on ferries from Liverpool to Dublin among other destinations.

But that has not stopped a government minister coming under fire from the travel industry over the advertising campaign on the issue, Travel Weekly reports.

Speaking at the Abta Travel Matters conference in London, Abta board member Kane Pirie put the heat on tourism minister John Penrose, telling him: "It is not the role of government to take taxpayers' funds to waste on a campaign against the outbound industry."

She said the £5 million spent on the campaign could have been better deployed in increasing resources to check passports and cut queues at immigration.

The government campaign appears to have had little success, as research by American Express recently found two-thirds of Britons plan to take a holiday overseas this year, with ten per cent going on trips that visit more than one country.

Posted by Mark Robinson

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