Today the government launches a multi-million pound advertising campaign encouraging you to stay at home this year and not go abroad for your breaks. Each year millions of us take holidays abroad, millions of us stay at home too. But we don't choose what break is best for us on the basis of government advertising.
Do you really need help from the government to choose where to go on holiday? Are you stuck at home unable to decide whether to choose a break in Cardiff or Corfu, waiting for the government to help you make that decision? I doubt it.
You would think there is some kind of problem with the market given the government wants to spend what little public money it has to tell us where to go on holiday. I would like to see the evidence that says there are a large proportion of Brits who require government assistance in choosing a holiday destination. But let's be honest, that evidence doesn't exist because we don't require Ministers and civil servants to help us decide what type of break is best for our families to unwind, relax or refresh. We are quite capable of choosing ourselves. And as ABTA's own research shows, two thirds of British consumers oppose the Government spending money on a campaign like this.
This government was partly elected on a ticket of doing politics differently. No more would government tell people what to do, so the line went. And a commensurate cut in government advertising followed. Public campaigns about road safety and health promotion were all abandoned, partly to save cash but partly to stop telling Brits what to do. Alas, it looks like where to go on holiday managed to slip through the cuts and from tonight you'll see it on your TV screens.
Think about how you last booked a holiday, whether it was online or on the high street. You have literally thousands of choices of destinations from snow-capped peaks to sun-drenched beaches, from big cities to getaway cruises. Once you've decided on a location there are dozens of companies competing for your business, whether that's at home or abroad. This is not a sector that requires government interference to present a range of products.
The odd thing about this campaign is that it flies in the face of the government's pronouncements that it is "avowedly free market". Jeremy Hunt, the Secretary of State, who launched the campaign is a rising star in the Tory party and not one who got where he is by advocating a greater role for the state. So, why is he spending your taxes on a campaign telling you where to go on holiday? That's hardly the way to deliver free market principles is it?
The government did get one thing right in this campaign though: holidays at home are great. They are. What they've left off is the second part of this: holidays abroad are great too. If I need inspiration on where to go on holiday I'll turn to friends and family for recommendations or the plentiful holiday brochures and online sites. Probably the last people I'd go to for ideas are the government.