Funding cuts to tourism support are beginning to "hurt" the industry and risk killing a "golden goose" which generates ?9?billion across the South West, experts claim.
The latest round of cuts in Cornwall are set to slash the tourist budget by almost 20% and remove nearly half the council's dedicated workforce of 20 staff, it has emerged.
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Hundreds of sunbathers made the most of yesterday?s weather and filled the region?s beaches, including here at Woolacombe, Devon Picture: Guy Harrop
In Devon, where even bigger cuts are expected, a leading figure in the industry has called for a "serious" debate before any further reductions are made to avoid jeopardising a sector which supports tens of thousands of jobs.
The Duchy's council-owned tourist body VisitCornwall will see ?200,000 wiped from its ?950,000 annual grant, prompting it to ditch a ?35,000 deal with a German PR company seen as key to attracting legions of fans of the TV adaptations of the romantic novels of Rosamunde Pilcher.
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Funding for tourist information centres (TIC) in the Duchy ? which two years ago saw Penzance, St Ives and Falmouth share ?250,000 ? has been halved and now stands at just ?75,000 split between 21 centres.
Malcolm Bell, head of VisitCornwall, who is to lose his personal assistant in the restructure, admits that following a 30% reduction three years ago, the cuts are now starting to "hurt" and projects would now be "limited".
"It is regrettable and nobody is happy," he added. "The reductions mean we have lost capacity to operate as we did before.
"We are still operating in the digital UK market but where it will start to hurt is in tourism representation and influencing ? we will do our best but it will be a lot less than we have done in the past."
Despite operating at the limit, Mr Bell said he would "bet his shirt" on there being more cuts on the way, adding that he would not be "sitting and waiting" but instead attempting to secure private sector funding by developing a new business model.
An in-depth analysis of the benefits of tourism produced by VisitCornwall and published in December, the Value of Tourism, revealed how dependent the region is on the industry.
It shows that a quarter of all employment in the Duchy now relies on tourism, some 60,921 jobs, thanks to the ?1.85 billion spent by tourists.
Excluding the value of visits from family, friends and second homes, the value of tourism to Devon in 2011 was ?2.15bn, compared to ?1.44bn in Dorset and ?1.11bn in Somerset.
The TICs in Cornwall are now planning to form a federation in the hope they can use the remaining cash to at least make sure they hold on to licences for the DMS computerised booking system on which they rely.
Tina Evans, chairman of the Padstow Area Tourism Business Forum, which runs the town's TIC with ?10,000 from the town council and support from Cornwall Council, criticised VisitCornwall for concentrating its efforts on the internet and first-time visitors.
She fears the approach fails the thousands of small businesses which form the "backbone" of the industry and hopes the newly elected Independent/Lib Dem coalition at County Hall will look more kindly on them than the previous administration.
"They should be marketing the whole of Cornwall not just the chosen few who can afford the costly subscription," she added.
"They are piling all the money into social media but people don't get bookings through Facebook and you cannot quantify the results.
"These cuts will cause us pain and we will struggle to find the money ? other TICs will go ? if they don't run this DMS system they will be totally ineffectual and businesses will be lost in the ether."
The funding picture in Devon is much more complicated than Cornwall with six tourism partnerships supporting the industry.
However, a similar picture exists with the county council axing the ?50,000 a year it paid to VisitDevon in the first round of spending cuts two years ago and South West Tourism body has been scrapped.
Caroline Custerson, chief executive of the English Riviera Tourism Company, based in Torbay, where the council is facing ?10 million budget cuts, said Cornwall had seen visitors drop by 6% in a decade and Devon 3%, a time when cities were outperforming seaside destinations.
"We need more money to grow, not less, and we have got to be careful we are not putting ourselves at unnecessary risk when we have got such a good product," she added.
"There needs to be a serious debate over the consequences of cutting tourism budgets.
"The issue councils face is that tourism spending is discretionary and they are focussing on statutory services but with so many people employed the industry is absolutely vital and the backbone of our economy.
"If we allow the visitor experience to be affected detrimentally people will not come year after year."
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