Take a break in region you call home – to fill the tourism gap

FOR several reasons – not least the fact that it means cases of Covid-19 are growing far less quickly than elsewhere – we should be grateful that the South West remains in the lowest tier of Covid-19 restrictions. Tier 1 means we must obey the rule of six (indoors and outdoors) and our pubs, bars and restaurants can only serve us at the table and must close by 10pm.

But while our region is – at time of writing – a long way from the tougher measures in force elsewhere in the UK that does not mean the restrictions in the north of England and other parts of Britain won’t have at least an indirect impact here.

Spring was a disaster for the Westcountry’s tourism and hospitality businesses as lockdown prevented people from travelling to our region knocking millions off what could have been a brilliant start to the season. When the restrictions were lifted many businesses bounced back.

But holiday cottage owners, hoteliers, publicans and those in the bed and breakfast business were banking on a good autumn, even extending into winter, to help claw back some of their lost takings. Even if our region escapes the tightest restrictions that isn’t going to happen.

Those areas of the country under Tier 3 restrictions in the north west might be expected to send visitors our way for a late autumn break. Yet the rules state that only essential travel is allowed. Taking the family down to Cornwall in the camper van from locked down Liverpool, tempting as it might be, would be to breach the rules.

And even those people in less harshly controlled regions are being warned, at least by VisitCornwall, that they should not head West. Holiday cottage owners and others offering hospitality accommodation are being urged to cancel bookings from would-be visitors in coronavirus hotspot areas. There is no lateseason bounce on the cards.

At a stroke all those campaigns urging visitors to relish the sights, sounds, smells and tastes of autumn in the Westcountry look largely redundant, at least so far as visitors from a large swathe of Britain are concerned who can no longer travel freely to our beautiful part of the world.

There is, however, some light in the gloom. A large proportion of the market for holiday and hospitality experiences during the so-called shoulder seasons of spring and autumn comes from people within the South West, travelling to other parts of the South West. That – at the moment, at least – can still happen. No one would object, surely, to a family from Plymouth enjoying a long weekend in West Cornwall, so long as they stuck to the rules, stayed socially distanced and remained in their own ‘bubble.’

There is a large proportion of the staycationing public who were eager for a break in the Westcountry during school half-term and who won’t be able to have one. They should definitely not be encouraged to come down anyway and break the rules, either in the letter of the law or in its spirit. We need to keep our region safe. But local travel can still go ahead and properly managed people in the Westcountry can support the region’s businesses. We urge them to do exactly that.