Alliances take a business led approach and can support and enhance public sector tourism by accessing private sector innovation. This, together with effective facilitation produces successful results and better understanding in challenging financial times.

The Coalition Government has signaled a desire to see a control shift towards local co-operatives taking a more active role in the provision of services currently provided by the public sector as part of its plan for “Big Society”.

The recently commissioned Spending Review will challenge public sector roles in many areas including tourism, and represents an opportunity to embrace a new bottom up approach to delivering the England Strategic Tourism Framework in partnership with other Strategic Tourism Partners.

Alliances are, in our opinion, the future of collaborative working, through the clustering of tourism businesses at a local and neighborhood level in order to meet the common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations of its people.