The Office for National Statistics as reported on the BBC have reported today that the UK saw its service sector sales have the biggest fall in fifteen months April. Blame was allocated to the Royal Wedding, an extra bank holiday and the hot weather which seems to me to be a similar excuses as trains running late due to leaves on the line.

Is it sensible to expect that every month and every year things will always improve?
A few years ago a friend of mine went to his doctor and said that he felt depressed. He described how some days he felt great whilst on others he felt “tired and down”. His Doctor explained that this was normal and indeed it actually has a medical name.

Isn’t business the same? One month will be great and often another poor and it’s actually destructive to expect that growth must always be the norm. Reviewing things as they become quiet and business situations change is healthy. The best time for such reviews is when things are quiet.

I listened with interest a feature on BBC Radio over the Easter holiday talking about how tourism should, be the UK’s main focus and make the UK the world’s leading holiday destination. The Royal Wedding, The Queen’s Jubilee and of course the London Olympics all expect to generate huge revenue from foreign and domestic tourism.

But it was not just events such as the Olympics that are highlighted as the main draws of tourist pounds. London, country houses and castles, the lakes and all parts of the UK were also mentioned in plans to make the UK a primary holiday destination.

UK tourist industry can’t relocate
One of the comments I particularly liked was, “The UK tourist industry can’t threaten to relocate their Head office abroad”. I chuckled at a vision of tourist boss’s taking over the top floor of One Canada Square to look over the jewel in the tourist crown (London) whilst displaced bankers roam the poorer parts on London with their posessions in a black bin liners looking for cheaper office space. 

Business focus changes
I wonder if this represents the discussion, in some quarters, that perhaps the UK could cope with a less influential finance sector and that like past changes in the UK’s business such as the woolen industry, coal, steel, shipping and so on that, like nature, business abhors a vacuum and something would replace it, and why not tourism!

On the other hand instead on focussing on an either or solution perhaps the Banks and the Tourist Boards could share the top floor of Canada Square?