There are plenty of tourists, but UK hospitality firms are plagued by labour shortages this summer
For Lynton, a small village perched on a picturesque hill overlooking the north Devon coast, this year’s summer tourist season has been exceptional. Holidaymakers from all over the UK have descended in huge numbers, arriving by coach, by car and on foot.
The scenes are perhaps unsurprising, given how many households have decided against international travel this year when faced with the expense and uncertainty of Covid rules. In July, the Resolution Foundation thinktank estimated that an extra £30.5bn and 300,000 jobs would be injected into British travel and hospitality sectors if tourists across Europe switched foreign holidays for domestic ones – with Devon one of the biggest recipients of this shift.