Opinion: North Devon should be everyone’s next holiday destination!

Tourism is vital to North Devon. Our devastatingly beautiful landscape, beaches and moors, alongside fabulous tourist attractions, great accommodation and outstanding pubs and restaurants secures out spot of one of the standout UK visitor destinations.

The Biosphere continue to do so much great work to promote our region along with our beautiful coastline, home to the UK’s first cold water Surf Reserve and world renowned attractions such as the Lynton and Lynmouth Cliff Railway.

Indeed, tourism is a cornerstone of North Devon’s local economy, welcoming six million visitors and generating £229million annually.

North Devon boasts 2,500 hospitality venues and it is the 8,000 individuals working within them that make North Devon such a great place to visit – thank to each and every one of them.

Our fabulous local pubs, restaurants and cafes cater for our many hungry and thirsty visitors, supported by our fantastic local farmers who supply so much of the produce that makes this even more unique.

North Devon is also home to nationally recognised food festivals and farmers' markets, including the award winning South Molton Pannier Market.

As the MP and the one woman tourist board, I am keen to promote North Devon as everyone’s next holiday destination.

I firmly believe that our community sets exceptional standards for the quality of our environment, local produce, and attraction for potential visitors. Even if you live here, it is such an enormous constituency, it’s worth going on holiday to the other side of it!

My role as an MP involves ensuring that our hospitality businesses can continue to recover from the setbacks posed by the pandemic, energy crisis and vacancy levels impacting our labour market over recent years.

That is why, I frequently visit business owners in North Devon to listen to their concerns. I also work very closely with the chief executive of UK Hospitality, Kate Nichols, who is a staunch advocate of the entire hospitality sector and visited North Devon at my invitation last year.

I feed this information back to Westminster and did so recently when I led a debate on ‘fiscal support for hospitality and tourism in coastal areas’ prior to the Spring Budget to highlight these concerns to the Treasury.

When I welcomed the then Tourism Minister, now, Financial Secretary, Nigel Huddleston MP to Ilfracombe in 2021, there was a unanimous desire to raise the £85,000 VAT threshold for its tourism sector.

During the debate, I emphasised the importance of raising our VAT threshold, alongside a reduction in the VAT rate to 12.5% to reflect the challenges faced by our hospitality and tourism sector in coastal areas.

Although the 2024 Spring Budget did not deliver cuts in VAT that I had hoped for, it did raise the VAT threshold to £90,000, which will hopefully ensure more small businesses will stay open a few weeks longer each year!

The Budget also delivered an extension of the freeze on alcohol duty and a welcome cut to employee National Insurance, although I would have also liked to see a reduction in employer contributions as well, please do not think I will not continue to lobby for future support for this vital local industry.

With English Tourism Week in March, I felt that it was an important opportunity to pay tribute and highlight the importance of the tourism sector in our local communities.

It is essential that we reflect upon all the progress being made to continue supporting our hospitality businesses and boosting the confidence in the quality of our local environment.

As I continue to push for further reforms and improvements spanning both areas, I encourage any businesses in North Devon to get in touch with me to discuss any additional issues they may be facing: selaine.saxby.mp@parliament.uk.