In brief: The Jersey Hospitality Association has warned that the proposed 2027 Budget risks closing businesses and losing air routes by withdrawing support at precisely the wrong moment. The industry body is calling for up to £5 million in transferred funding, continued route-development support, and a freeze on alcohol duty.
A Cut Dressed Up as a Pause
The Jersey Hospitality Association (JHA) has fired a pointed broadside at the proposed 2027 Budget, describing it, in Bailiwick Express’s report, as “a cut presented as a pause.” The association, which represents more than 200 members covering over 300 businesses, argues that government support is being withdrawn at the very moment the industry needs it most, with costs continuing to rise and any promised relief pushed back to 2028 at the earliest.
The timing could hardly be worse. Jet2 has almost 155,000 seats on sale for next summer across eight routes, which the JHA’s submission notes is treble the airline’s previous capacity. Thousands of extra seats going on sale is, in theory, excellent news for Jersey’s visitor economy. In practice, the JHA warns, it becomes a liability if there is insufficient marketing money to fill them and no route-development support to keep airlines committed to the Island.
“Our industry cannot be asked to absorb another year of rising costs and withdrawn support while the plans are drafted,” the association said, “because that year will decide which businesses, and which routes, are still here when the plans arrive.” That is a stark warning, and one the Government of Jersey would do well to take seriously rather than file under “stakeholder feedback.”
The Numbers Behind the Warning
The financial picture the JHA paints is sobering. The Better Business Support Package ends in December, removing £2 million for Visit Jersey and £1 million for route development through Ports of Jersey. The JHA’s marketing forecast assumes Visit Jersey retains its £4.72 million core grant and that staff and operating costs remain unchanged. Even on those relatively optimistic assumptions, it calculates that marketing funds could fall by 46% to 48% against 2025 levels. That is not a trim; that is a near-halving of the money available to tell the world that Jersey exists and is worth visiting.
The association is calling for up to £5 million to be transferred from existing government funds to Visit Jersey for 2027, or at minimum for its 2026 funding to be protected. It also wants the £1 million in route-development support continued. Visit Jersey’s own accounts, the submission notes, state that funding for 2027 and beyond “has not been agreed,” which is a rather remarkable admission for an organisation whose entire purpose depends on forward planning.
Alcohol Duty and a Missing Strategic Line
Beyond the headline funding ask, the JHA takes aim at the proposed 2.8% increase in alcohol duty, which it argues is inconsistent with a fuel-duty freeze and damaging to pubs, hotels and restaurants already operating on thin margins. The association calculates that a £600,000 alcohol-duty freeze would sit comfortably within the projected £703,000 operating surplus, making it, in its view, an affordable concession rather than a fiscal risk.
While the JHA welcomes a review of duty relief for licensed premises, it points out that the timetable means no practical relief before 2028 at the earliest, leaving businesses to absorb another year of increased costs in the meantime.
Perhaps the sharpest criticism in the submission concerns not money but words. The JHA notes that tourism and hospitality are absent from the proposed Common Strategic Policy, despite ministers having described the visitor economy as strategically important. “What is missing,” the association said, “is the line in the document and the money behind it.” The JHA also cites a 9% rise in overnight leisure visitors in the first eight months of 2026 as evidence that the industry is recovering and that now is precisely the wrong moment to pull back.
The association has offered to help States Members draft amendments, adding with admirable pragmatism: “What matters is that the money is there when the seats are, not whose name is on the amendment.”
Source: Bailiwick Express
