Parkdean Resorts, the UK’s largest holiday park operator, has expressed its support to VisitEngland’s English Tourism Week, an annual celebration of English tourism that highlights the importance, value, and vast contribution the sector makes to the UK economy.

English Tourism Week gets underway from 17 to 26 March and sees the industry highlight tourism’s economic importance, with English tourism making up 80% of the UK’s visitor economy. In 2019, English tourism generated over £100 billion a year and supported 2.6 million jobs.

The tourism industry is a major employer of school leavers and young people, and as a business that champions and employs thousands of young people, Parkdean Resorts is keen to support the campaign. VisitEngland’s campaign aims to increase awareness amongst domestic and overseas visitors of the value and quality of the English tourism offer, whilst also encouraging domestic travel. The campaign also provides an opportunity for businesses to engage with local stakeholders, such as local MPs, to bring attention to tourism’s contribution in their area.

Throughout English Tourism Week, VisitEngland is also encouraging people to show support for English tourism on social media by using the #EnglishTourismWeek23 hashtag.

Helping young people

This is not the only time Parkdean Resorts has pledged its support to helping more young people into the tourism and hospitality industry. The holiday park operator joined the Government’s Kickstart Scheme in 2021, giving young people an opportunity to launch a career within the hospitality industry at one of its 66 parks across the UK. As an official Kickstart employer, Parkdean Resorts provided young people on Universal Credit and at risk of long-term unemployment with a 6-month work placement, alongside a fully approved training programme, and aims to give them the skills needed to succeed in the industry.

Parkdean Resorts also recently announced a major new partnership with youth charity, The Prince’s Trust. The holiday park operator will work closely with The Prince’s Trust to create meaningful opportunities for young people across the UK seeking employment, by developing exciting initiatives and work experience programmes within Parkdean’s operations and across its 66 holiday parks.

This year, Parkdean Resorts will hire 11,000 people, with over 10,000 seasonal and 750 permanent roles on offer, with 250 different careers available across its business. The holiday park operator is a keen supporter of initiatives which aid youth employment and professional development and those that encourage careers within the hospitality industry, and last year pledged its support to Hospitality Rising, an initiative created to help tackle the industry’s staffing crisis, which aims to attract more people to join the industry and help fill the 400,000 vacancies the sector is currently facing.