12th Sep 2011 - 00:00
Abstract
The hospitality and leisure sector has yet to be convinced of the ability of politicians to reduce tax, red tape and the deficit, according to ‘Politics and the Economy 2021’ research released today by Barclays Corporate.
The research polled business leaders on the political conditions they expect their businesses to face in a decade and found that companies in the hospitality and leisure sector were resigned to the fact that they would be dealing with more red tape (68%) and higher taxes (66%) in a decade. Hospitality and leisure businesses are divided over whether or not there will be more or less reliance on the public sector, with 42% expecting there to be less reliance and 30% expecting there to be more in the next ten years. Mike Saul, head of Hospitality and Leisure at Barclays Corporate, said: "While central and local government play an important role in boosting the sector, businesses must accept that relying on the public sector alone is not a recipe for success over the coming decade, particularly with austerity measures as they are." The sector was quite negative on the prospects of state education to support UK businesses. More than half of the hospitality and leisure businesses surveyed (59%) do not believe state education will be successful in supporting businesses – 41% of which believe it will be much less successful. Saul continued: "The importance of traineeships and apprenticeships in this sector cannot be over-emphasised. With the majority of UK hospitality and leisure businesses believing state education will fail to sufficiently support growth in the industry, a concerted and proactive effort to advocate how education policy will best facilitate growth must be made." More than two thirds of the UK's hospitality and leisure companies (77%) believe a budget surplus in the public sector will not be achieved by 2021.