A south west accountancy firm has predicted winners and losers in the run up to the Diamond Jubilee, the Olympics, and the European soccer championships.
While local hotels, pubs, and tourism destinations could enjoy a boom, Matthew Lee, managing partner at Bishop Fleming, fears these events could lead to losses for others.
He said: “The timing of the extra holiday for the Queen‘s Jubilee will coincide with schools‘ half term, and this will encourage many people to take the entire week off, and many of those families will spend that week – and their money – in the south west.
“That could be great for this region‘s many tourism businesses.”
However, there is a downside, according to Lee.
“Every business in this region will have to cope with an additional bank-holiday,” he said, “encouraging many of their staff to take off that entire week – especially as it coincides with school half-term. There will also be the prospect of employees wanting to follow the Olympics and the European soccer championship tournament in July.
“That will lead to a second month of staff absence.
“At a time when the Government and the Bank of England are eager to find signs of economic growth, these national celebrations will undermine that ambition. I don‘t want to be a ‘damp-blanket’, but we have to understand that whatever figures are produced for UK PLC economic delivery in the second and third quarters of this year will have been hit by these events.”
