Wouldn't it be a huge boost for the local tourist industry if Manston could actually develop a viable passenger business?

The research says that it wouldn’t. The UK exports tourists rather than importing them - more Brits fly abroad for their holidays than foreigners come here.

The UK currently runs a “tourism deficit” of £19 billion a year and about £17 billion of that flies out of the UK every year with people flying abroad on holiday. This aviation tourism deficit is costing the UK about 900,000 jobs a year because people spend their money abroad instead of here.

On Infratil’s own numbers, this year twice as many local people flew from Manston to spend their money in Edinburgh than the number of people who flew from Scotland to spend their money here. For every inbound holidaymaker or business person to Thanet, we lose two to Edinburgh.

Manston is leaching money from the local economy.

Worse still, night flights over Thanet and Canterbury will cost us tourism-based jobs – that’s real jobs that exist today. People don’t choose go on holiday somewhere where they will have noisy 747s flying over their B&B all night. The Council’s independent experts have already said, a 747 taking off at night over Ramsgate will create a noise footprint that can be heard by 30,903 people. That wipes out Ramsgate as an attractive tourist destination.

Thanet has over 5,000 tourism jobs and tourism grew 10% here in the three years to 2009. Every 10% increase creates 500 more jobs – that’s five times as many jobs as Manston has created in the last eleven years. We should be protecting and growing our existing tourism business, not exporting tourist expenditure abroad and decimating the ability of Ramsgate to continue to develop as a successful tourist destination.

Comments

[A.T.Kiln]

The promise of Manston opening as an ever growing airport has been promised in every decade since the sixties and still we wonder when it will take off. Excuse the pun but it's all money in the pockets of the high flyers in the council offices who I doubt very much will be affected. No wonder Thanet's in a mess when the big Thanet Mafia get involved. Money Rules. Bye for now.

[The equalizer]

If this airport does get off the ground then we will have even more Eastern Europeans employed here because they are first in the jobs queue but at least we will have more buyers at our boot fairs, Onwards and upwards.

[A.nonymous]

The Equalizer. Reminds me of a joke.

What do you you call a man with 3 planks of wood?
Edward Woodward

What do you call a man with 4 planks of wood?

Dunno, but Edward Woodward would.

[Igloo]

It would be good for many people if Manston could develop a viable passenger business. But you have to live in the real world. The airport was privatised in 1999. It has lost oodles of money every year and has failed to attract any significant passenger trade, although it has been free to do so. I know why Councillors love to back the airport. Laziness. They can't be bothered to think about alternatives and so, they keep banging on about the airport as if they can create jobs by shouting the word out every five minutes. The truth is that any other form of development at Manston would, by now, have created far more jobs than the airport has. It really is time to call a halt to this nonsense. The airport isn't working and the Council needs to come up with a viable planning framework in the event it closes. Otherwise we'll be faced with another ten years of stagnation whilst they dither around bickering with each other.