TOURISM Minister Kim Howells today told a Yorkshire conference that tourism needed its own "Ben Gill" to speak for it with a single voice.

In a hard-hitting, unscripted speech to a Yorkshire tourist event, he demanded higher standards in an industry in which "some hotels make Fawlty Towers look like a documentary".

Mr Howells said the failure of some local authorities to reopen public footpaths despite never having had a case of foot and mouth disease was down to the feebleness of the tourism lobby compared with the strength of the farming lobby.

He said the tourism industry needed a figure like Ben Gill, the Easingwold-based president of the National Farmers' Union.

"When farmers spoke with a single voice through Ben Gill, they were heard in every single chamber in the country and more or less every home," he said.

"When tourism spoke, hardly anyone heard it."

He said a new organisation called a Tourism Alliance co-ordinated by the Confederation of British Industry would help to give the industry that voice.

The Minister told delegates at the conference in Bradford: "We must raise the quality of the product we are offering if we want to continue to expand. We are up against very fierce international competition."

He said that during the Labour Party conference at Brighton people had been queuing up to tell him to come and see their hotels, some of which made Fawlty Towers look like a documentary.

He said walkers wanted to be able to see online which footpaths were open but were often frustrated. He said some tourist websites had not been updated for six months.

"It's absolutely useless," he said. He recalled visiting a tourist information centre after it had closed, where there was not even a handwritten list of accommodation available in the window. This, he said, was amateurish.

Asked by Peter Peake, secretary of the Tadcaster-based Yorkshire Beer and Pub Association, for his views on licensing reform, he said he felt it was vital, but there was still opposition to it from many MPs.

Meanwhile, Gill Shaw, head of strategic intelligence with the English Tourism Council, revealed new research showing that ten per cent of the British public had been affected in their holiday plans by the terrorist attacks in America, or the conflict in Afghanistan.

She said this equated to up to five million people. And the vast majority of trips affected were planned holidays abroad. Many of the tourists were "upmarket".

She said that if the region marketed itself sufficiently effectively to potential British visitors, this could offset the lost trade caused by foreign visitors cancelling trips to Britain.

She said that the impact of the terrorist attacks so far had meant a reduction of up to 40 per cent in business in London, but less in the rest of the country.

Updated: 15:04 Wednesday, October 17, 2001