The Tourism Society has held its annual Prospects for 2005 meeting and unveiled the results of an informal member survey which suggests that many believe 2005 will see growth in hotel occupancies and revenues.

They also highlighted both overseas and domestic short breaks as set to increase this year, but have predicted a decline in longer domestic holidays.

Business tourism is also set to grow in 2005. Michael Hirst, chair of the Business Tourism Partnership, said that business tourism currently represents 31.7 per cent of total inbound tourism spend and around 20 per cent of all tourism, with demand for meetings and exhibitions being boosted by a competitive economy.

Stephen Dowd, chief executive of UKInbound, said predicted visitor figures for 2004 issued by the Office of National Statistics’ International Passenger Survey (IPS) appeared to show strong growth over the past year, with estimated final visitor numbers of a record 26.7 million and revenue up 5.4 per cent to £12.5bn.

However, he said the organisation believes the figures are not an accurate measure of inbound tourist figures and revenues and that they are actually not as strong as the IPS data claims, adding that visitor numbers are still down on the peak 2000 figures.

The event also saw a presentation by Geoffrey Lipman, special advisor to the secretary general of the UN World Tourism Organisation, on tourism recovery following the tsunami.

He said that the Asian market was resilient, particularly as the tragedy was a ‘one-off’, but that the affected areas’ tourism businesses must be assisted to ensure sustainable redevelopment.