Travel accountancy boss Jonathan Wall says the industry needs to follow the hospitality sector’s example and speak with one voice if it wants to get its message across to Government.

The Managing Director of Ellman Wall says the Government listens to hospitality more than travel because it has ‘learned to put away competing interests and speak as one sector’.

Mr Wall said the CEO of trade association UK Hospitality told him recently: “Our friends in the travel industry are very noisy but pretty ineffective.”

Mr Wall added: “UK Hospitality in its own words is the single, authoritative voice of the broad hospitality industry, representing everything from bars, coffee shops, contract catering, hotels, nightclubs, visitor attractions, leisure venues, and those who supply the industry. They say ONE INDUSTRY. ONE VOICE.”

“The need to create one organisation to speak for the entire travel industry has never been greater, and in my view, more urgently required for the future wellbeing of the sector.”

In a just-published blog, Mr Wall says travel needs to ‘focus on the effectiveness, not the noise’, and asks: “Who of our many association chairs and CEOs will cast aside self-interest and unify the UK travel industry?”

“I love the travel industry,” he said. “I love the people in it. My clients are very important to me, and we suffer when they suffer. I only want the best for it….and I can clearly see now that it has to be led in a different way for UK travel to survive and then thrive.”

Read Mr Wall’s full blog here.