The Save Future Travel Coalition have agreed to keep working together, and the group will now be known as the Future Travel Coalition.
The Coalition will continue to work together on shared lobbying goals and challenges, both relating to the pandemic and other policy priorities, to ensure a coordinated industry voice and message to government.
The Coalition partners meet on a monthly basis and recent joint activity includes the industry survey to monitor bookings trends and challenges within the UK travel industry, which will enable evidence to be shared with officials and Ministers and inform upcoming political engagement.
The change of name reflects that the industry is now in a recovery phase following the impact of the pandemic and the longer-term commitment of the existing partners to keep working together to promote the interests of the travel industry.
Background to the Coalition
The Save Future Travel Coalition was officially formed in summer 2020, to ensure a consistent and coordinated voice during the pandemic. Many of the organisations had been working together informally since the start of the pandemic and the Coalition was established to formalise this collaboration and to create a forum to share insights and plan activity.
The Coalition brings together 16 leading travel associations, consortiums and other bodies from across the organised travel sector, representing a large proportion of the market including leisure and business travel, inbound and outbound operations.
The bodies are:
- ABTA – The Travel Association
- AITO – The Specialist Travel Association
- Advantage Travel Partnership
- African Travel & Tourism Association (ATTA)
- Association of Northern Ireland Travel Agents (ANITA)
- Association of Touring and Adventure Suppliers (ATAS)
- The Business Travel Association (BTA)
- Cruise Lines International Association UK & Ireland (CLIA)
- Keep Travel Alive
- Latin American Travel Association (LATA)
- Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA)
- Scottish Passenger Agents’ Association (SPAA)
- Seasonal Businesses in Travel (SBIT)
- The Travel Network Group (TTNG)
- UKinbound
Luke Petherbridge, Director of Public Affairs at ABTA – The Travel Association said “The Coalition has been an invaluable forum throughout the pandemic to enable the industry to share insights and coordinate our lobbying messaging and asks.
“Throughout the pandemic we’ve been able to gather and disseminate evidence on the latest situation facing the travel sector, and we’ve come together on a number of joint lobbying initiatives.
Adding that, “Continuing our work together into the future will ensure we continue to exchange intelligence, coordinate messaging and add our combined weight to our arguments and lobbying asks. From the outset it was clear the Coalition was something that would have value beyond the pandemic. Changing the name reflects that the industry is now in the recovery phase and is a sign of our joint commitment to build on the progress we’ve made in improving cross-industry lobbying collaboration.”
Mike Tibbert, President of the SPAA stated “The governments within the UK have taken different approaches throughout the pandemic so it has been extremely helpful to be able to work together, sharing knowledge and updates, and combining our efforts to bring about change on behalf of all of our members and work towards a four-nation approach. We’re keen to continue to work together this way in the future.”
Joss Croft, Chief Executive of UKInbound commented “Outbound and inbound travel have experienced similar challenges throughout the pandemic so it has been good to be able to work collectively to address them. There are issues outside of the pandemic including around employing UK staff in the EU and vice versa now that we’re no longer in the European Union, again, being able to tackle these together adds weight to our efforts.”
