Full transcript: David Stafford on London Real
2:08 This is London Real. I am Brian Rose. My guest today is David Stafford, the executive vice president of London’s Big Bus Tours, the largest operator of open-top sightseeing bus tours in the world. Your company has faced the most challenging year in history, as the tourism industry is devastated by the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns. In July, you and 44 other leaders in tourism created the SOS London campaign, urging the government to take immediate action to halt the collapse of the industry.
2:42 This summer, when you would normally have 50 London buses in circulation, you had only one operating with just a handful of customers in a city that typically welcomes 20 million tourists each year. Your SOS London campaign is urging the government for long-term support and clear strategic planning. David, welcome to London Real. Thank you very much. It’s a pleasure to be here.
3:03 It’s great to have you here, and I’m so glad you’re here, because for the past four weeks, I’ve been trying to speak to lots of different people in industries, from hospitality to the theater industry, taxis, ex-police officers, to try to find out, quite frankly, how we can get London back to work. I just think it’s a crucial part that’s sometimes lost on some of our politicians. And when I started looking into the tourism industry, it’s bigger than I think a lot of people think.
3:29 And from what I can see, it’s responsible for almost 4 million jobs here in the UK, 11% so the country’s total workforce, and 200 billion pounds in revenue. It’s massive. And yet, just today, our government announced that we’re on tier 2 lockdown here in London, which is going to devastate hospitality and, again, dis-encourage people to come into London and spend on tourist activities. And we know that maybe international travel is halted because of other nations, but London could be benefiting from national travel, I think, so much more, and so our theaters could as well.
4:05 So, look, I’m glad you’re here today to talk about what you’re experiencing and what kind of solutions we can find. Tell me, what is it like from your perspective, watching your business go from where it was to now, and I don’t know, what do you think we can do to change it? Yeah, it’s been a crazy year. So, this time last year, we were celebrating record results, actually. And so we were coming into the start of 2020, the business was in the best position it had ever been.
4:34 And we were thriving. And to go from there to where we are now, it’s just crazy. And we’ve been operating since the 10th of July, so we started back post-lockdown on the 10th of July. And as you mentioned, we had one bus out. We managed to get up to four buses out a day.
4:59 And saw some signs of life back in August, to be fair, as parents and kids came and enjoyed some good weather. But even on our good days, we were still 93%, 94% down against last year. So, that’s crazy. And now, as prevailing sentiment is going against us, and it feels almost a bit like déjà vu from back in March time, as we’re heading towards lockdowns, we’re seeing our numbers have dropped off the cliff to the point where we’re running is almost unsustainable.
5:37 And that’s the challenge, is we’re a business that supported 300 jobs in London. One of the things I’ve heard you talk about is consumer confidence, just having people feel like they can go and do things and spend and things like that. Like, how devastating is that when, of course, we had people coming back in August, September, they eat out to help out, people got comfortable going back in venues that they might have thought were dangerous and they realized they’re actually not.
6:07 And now, all that seems to be stopped now with these tears and lockdowns and it feels like there’s a new wave of fear, which I’m guessing is the worst thing for your business. Yeah, so we took all the measures that we could when reopening to introduce social distancing on board and we clean the buses between every tour and we have digital tickets so everything’s kind of contactless. But we really were just starting to see some fragments of consumer confidence return in August and people starting to come back out and feel more comfortable, which is what we desperately need and what everyone needs really for the economies to return.
6:58 But obviously now, with cases on the rise again and the government announcements and as I say the prevailing sentiment, it’s like a yo-yo almost of people don’t know what to do anymore because people were coming out and eating out to help out, as you say, and that trust and confidence was coming back but it’s now being thoroughly suppressed I think and it’s difficult for businesses to cope because you don’t know if you’re coming or going. Yeah, I think uncertainty is the worst thing for a business because you can’t plan, you can’t know how many buses do I need, who do I need to hire, do I need to downsize the offices you have in Victoria, what do we need to do? And I was just speaking with a gentleman this morning who looks after the pub industry and he was saying with two days notice these pubs were shut in Liverpool and now the brewers didn’t even know so they’ve got all this brew and ale and now they’re sitting on it because they didn’t know.
8:02 And I’ve spoken to so many entrepreneurs that say I need lead time, I need to know what’s going to happen, otherwise it’s almost doubly worse for them as businesses. Yeah, and we have the same thing really. You’re making decisions live with information that’s being released at the last minute and I actually think back to March where we were saying okay, well how bad could this get? I guess we could be 30, 40% down and we’re going to have to drop off a couple of buses then almost a day later we were saying no actually we’re going to be 60, 70% down and then a day later it’s like oh no we’re going to have to close tomorrow and it moved so quickly back in March and nothing you could ever imagine really.
8:56 And so I think we’ve learnt to try and be agile and so we’ve got a very clear plan for what it is that we do, what service we run, what staff we’re going to bring in depending on what happens and that’s as good as we can be really. We internally plan and scenario plan ourselves and get ready for what hits us. Yeah, one of the things I’ve been talking about lately is it feels like there’s a disproportionate response to the virus and the hospitality sector in general I think is responsible according to Public Health England for like 3.3% of transmissions and I’m guessing tourism probably isn’t far behind that and yet we see that industry almost targeted to be shut down and I know a lot of people are frustrated especially because they took measures, some of the best measures probably some of the cleanest places you can be because usually their business is keeping things clean.
9:55 You guys have open air buses I mean for God’s sakes you know and again you have all the contactless pieces as well. Is it frustrating when you see the government shutdown industries that actually are crucial for the economy and you would think would be the smartest ones to keep open? It is a tricky area so in fact funnily enough one of the things that strikes me at the moment is that our business is unlikely to be shut down because we run essentially a service operating license under TFL so we’re deemed like a service bus although we’re not, we’re an open air bus and it’s outdoors so it’s much safer than a service bus I would say, Covid-wise.
10:40 But actually with the new coronavirus job support scheme that’s been released and the changes to that that the Chancellor announced in the last week or so they are, the government will support businesses that they force to close but actually ones like ours that probably won’t be told we have to close but will actually not have any custom won’t get that support. So kind of ironically in some regards actually there’s a scenario that says I’d prefer us to be told to close so we could claim effectively what is the new government support rather than what I think based on my reading of the rules will happen now which is that we might have to close anyway but we’re not actually told to and you know what I mean. I think we’re seeing a similar thing with the pubs in London where they’re not told to close but you can’t go there and meet anyone else so why would you go so they don’t qualify for their job retention scheme and so they kind of slowly bleed out.
11:44 Yes, that’s my fear. And same with you because you just don’t have customers. In some regards I’d like to say it’s the government’s fault for shutting us down but actually there are no tourists and that’s the biggest existential challenge for us is actually that ideally what we’d want is at least the government to recognize and support the fact that there are no tourists and therefore what are we to do. Right and I want to get into this SOS London plan as well and some of the details.
12:23 Just curious what you think about, I see a bunch of the mayors in the north quite vocal, Mayor of Liverpool, Sheffield, Newcastle saying don’t close our pubs, don’t stop our industry and really fighting for and asking the government for where’s the science and really demanding that they try to at least explain it or throw them a lifeline. And yet in London I feel like the opposite. I feel like the mayor here is saying it’s inevitable to lock down. I mean it’s almost like I feel like he wants to lock this city down and it also seems to tell all the businesses here that he wants to shut them down and you’re in this business milieu and when all the businesses shut down and people are encouraged not to come in the city, I mean you’re going to feel those effects.
13:08 Why do you think that’s happening? I think that my, I guess my personal view is that the politicians just don’t know and that there are different views but the science is inconclusive and people make their own judgments and so depending on what their own vested interests are and it’s the continual debate of health versus economy and where you sit on that balance and I think I would prefer it if the mayor of London had a different stance but yeah that’s I guess his prerogative. Yeah, no and I agree the science can kind of be currently kind of co-opted for whatever you want to do as a result.
14:06 The problem with the economic costs is that they’re deferred and even the mental health and physical health of those are deferred down the road whereas the cases in some of the COVID related deaths can maybe be quantified earlier. So I guess as politicians sometimes they seem to be making those choices but I don’t know it continually doesn’t seem to be backed in science and I’m a little frustrated with the mayor because it seems almost as if he’s encouraging the lockdown in the city in a city that’s already hurting economically 13% of the office workers there you know transport in London is very difficult to get around and it feels like the mayor should be encouraging businesses and it almost seems like it’s trying to shut the whole thing down and I don’t know if that means to get a bailout later or what the strategy is but it’s everyone I talk to is they just actually just don’t understand the logic to a point where it’s not even they don’t agree they said I don’t know why that decision is being made.
15:05 Tell me more about the SOS London plan and what do you think the government could do for tourism in general because it’s a sector maybe isn’t talked about as much. Yeah, I think we fly under the radar a bit compared to sort of hospitality retail and the SOS collective was a group of London tourist businesses coming together back in July actually to initially really to lobby for the government to look at improvements of business rates for tourists specific and to look at extensions to the furlough scheme or changes to it to reflect the significant issues that tourism was facing and also to try and publicize people coming into London and to drive some footfall into London and so that was really into August I guess and to try and secure some public funding for some sort of visit London type campaigns that we hoped would be run.
16:10 I think it had some semblance of success in terms of getting the name out there and possibly making people think about coming into visit tourist businesses in London. We weren’t successful in achieving response from the government or sector specific support and it feels like as I alluded to before that certain businesses may fall through the cracks with the continuation of the furlough scheme or the job support scheme that’s coming in now that there will be a number of businesses within tourism that no longer can allow their staff to claim furlough but won’t be able to do anything else and so yeah my fear is that we weren’t successful in protecting tourism in London as of yet. Yeah, how do you feel when you’re trying to promote visit London and then there is reintroduced a 24-7 congestion charge and then reintroduced 10 p.m. curfews?
17:22 It didn’t seem to make logical sense to me and there were a few other areas similar to that that have made things more difficult I think for us as well so during lockdown a number of the roads around London like significant road work was done without consultation that ripped up some of the areas along Park Lane for example we’d had a long standing stand space there which is a sort of a key aspect of how we built the business is getting the right stand spaces to stand our buses in certain areas and the opportunity was taken to build a large cycle superhighway down Park Lane basically taking away that space that we’d kind of secured years ago and without consultation which is a shame for us and when we came back after lockdown it was sort of the daggers are coming from all sides as it were we can’t buy a break here so similar to the congestion charge I guess it feels like that maybe the local and national governments aren’t pulling together in the right direction as I might hope they would Yeah and I’ve heard this from many black cab drivers who are frustrated by all aspects of what you’re talking about but you know they said they speak to business professionals and they say I used to be able to have five meetings a day and now I can have two because of the road works the sidewalk barriers, the bike lanes that all just seem to get rushed through during this time without the consultations and look I’m all for cycling in a greener community
19:22 But not to the detriment of road traffic in London because the city that can’t move can’t thrive and you must see that because that’s part of your business speak on that because it’s hard to talk bad about eco-friendly bikes but when they’re taking up 30% of your real estate on the road in a city that’s already suffering from congestion it needs to be talked about Yeah I’m with you, I’m a cyclist myself and I’m a big advocate of cycling as a fantastic way to get around the city but I think it needs to be done in the right way and I think picking Park Lane as an example there’s now only one single lane for traffic for cars down Park Lane and even in the depths of lockdown it was pretty chock-a-block down there because it can’t sustain that volume of traffic and there is a huge cycle lane that’s been built there that does not have very many bicycles going up and down it because it’s right next to a park where you can also cycle so it doesn’t seem to me to be brilliantly thought through and as you say it possibly felt like it was a bit rushed through in lockdown but we all say that the ultra-low emission zone is an important aspect of I guess the city’s moves to ensure emissions are managed and we’ve made sure that all of our fleet are compliant with the highest in terms of emission standards so because we believe in it and pre-coronavirus we were very seriously looking to invest in a large number of electric vehicles
21:26 To effectively swap those in for some of our older vehicles but it doesn’t feel like we’ll have the cash on hand to do that for some time and that’s the problem that people forget that when the economy is down and when it’s down so significantly everything suffers including your green initiatives tax seed drivers were shelling out 60 grand for these new electric taxis which are incredible but you can only do that when business is good you can only do these great green initiatives when you have money you can only fund furlough programs when you have tax revenues coming in so I think that’s easily forgot in a panic time and that’s why when you talk about the economy in the midst of a pandemic it might seem callous and I feel like we’re over that first wave but it has real issues for physical health, mental health, economic stability and even green issues like you said it needs to be considered and maybe talked about it a little bit more when it comes to that tell me more about SOS I know you’re trying to promote more people visiting I sat down with John Morgan from The Theatre’s Trust and he told me a stat I found interesting is that for every pound that someone spent on a ticket in the theatre they spent like an additional 83 pounds throughout the city and it was actually more was spent I even think with domestic tourists than even international tourists because a lot of times people would have the one day
22:54 Or the one weekend a year where they come from outside of England they come into London, they have the big theatre they go out to dinner, they take a bus tour everything they go big, they spent a lot of money in the city and yet he couldn’t seem to get government approval for what he had was a Covid safe way of having the theatre set up and he was really frustrated and that really hurt tourism and he was trying to get again more people to try to get back into the city I guess you’re trying to do the same or you were trying to promote people here Yeah that’s right I guess it’s with us now having moved to tier two and with as I say prevailing sentiment it’s difficult to know how much we can continue to push that message of come to London but that’s what I’d like to push because that’s what we need but we are part of an ecosystem within tourism so we work very closely with historic royal palaces in the Tower of London and with Merlin who run the London Eye and Madame Tussauds and city cruises who run the boats along the river we’re all kind of like a family that all support each other and as you say tourists who come down for the weekend or visit the city for a week even spend a lot of money so they go to the theatre but they also likely do a bus tour do the London Eye, do the Tower of London, do the Riverboat cruise and therein kind of generates the economy and they’ve got a lot of touch points along there
24:33 That are currently in deep pain because the people aren’t there Yeah and this is something that everyone’s been talking about I mean I personally think we need to really just strip everything back and think what can we do to promote these businesses which means again cutting the business rates and giving that more of a deferral and I know you’ve been talking about the SOS London drop them right down I mean businesses are struggling to pay rent right now the congestion charge has got to be removed it’s got to be removed people need to want to come in here on the weekends and spend we have to again find the science based solutions to get our hospitality venues back and what I think we don’t have to do is say a lockdown’s inevitable when a lockdown should be based on science actually a lockdown should be on actually taking a break from the NHS that’s originally what a lockdown was for it was never created to stop the spread of disease I just feel like we need to look at this through a different lens and not a callous lens there are definitely people in danger but those people need to be protected but again I see this disproportionate response where a whole industry, a whole city, a whole country is being forced to be penalized when most of those people can safely go to work most of those people really want to come to London they want to experience culture and I appreciate what you’re doing with SOS any of the messages with SOS that you’re trying to get out there
25:55 I know you mentioned business rights as well I suppose the truth is that we are now refocusing our efforts onto what our next phase is so we had a big push for what we hoped the government would do to help support us through the back end of the summer and into the autumn and we are now, we’ve actually got a meeting early next week to discuss our strategies for the winter and really in light of the recent government announcements and the fact that we still feel more support is needed You’re a bit disappointed that we went to tier two I’m guessing Very much so, yeah and as much as anything because of what it means for the overall mood and the overall feel about London and what it will do for people in Kent and Surrey and Cambridge here who were thinking about day tripping into London who are our customer base right now Yeah, my fear is what it will do to their mindset I think we need leadership that says how can we keep this city open and keep it thriving safely as opposed to leadership that tells everybody look out, it’s going to get bad and worse just give it time, it’s inevitable, we’re at a tipping point We need confidence, we need leadership, science-based decisions The World Tourism and Travel Council predicted some pretty bad things recently that London would be the hardest hit city in Europe and it’s the worst hit city in the UK and I think the President, Gloria Guevara said that quote, the UK could take years to recover from this lump of demand
27:53 Which could threaten London’s position for a long time I mean London is such a massive hub of activity from tourism we forget how it really is and this again just further erodes that confidence Yeah, I quite agree and I think so our business is we’re based in big cities so we are focused on the biggest cities in the world our big operations are in London, New York, Paris, Singapore and one of the toughest things for us through this pandemic is that those are the places that are the biggest hit in a sense that have found it most difficult the people are avoiding big cities and that is one of London’s problems and going to be one of London’s problems coming out of this is the feeling people have about big cities now we’ve, anecdotally we talk to our competitors who have businesses in York and in Bath and in Norwich we only operate in the big cities so we don’t have the smaller provincial businesses but they’ve said to us the smaller cities are actually doing okay because people are still going to Cambridge or Oxford or Bath and day tripping to those smaller cities but they’re actually carrying more passengers in those cities than they are in London because people are scared and there has been this breeding of fear almost about going to big cities and that’s a big challenge and hurdle we need to overcome is to build that confidence back as I keep saying Yeah and it’s just not true I think London’s R number is still under one
29:40 Which means the disease is contracting, not expanding but there’s been this campaign of fear you walk into the hospitality venues here, they’re as good as anywhere else it makes no sense Best of the world It’s best of the world it is and this is the greatest city in the world I honestly think we could be a world leader in the protocols that we have to show that we could have people back in theatres back in the centre of the city safely at restaurants, safety at pubs everyone’s really going out of their way to work for that I really also think that the leadership could encourage the city to get back to work I think we could sit down with 25 of the global banks and law firms and say, what do you need to encourage your able workers to come back in? That big building you wanted to build in Canary Wharf, let’s talk What else would you like?
30:27 This is still the premier financial institution because that’s killing things as well I know you have massive tourism that happens in the city of London in St. Paul All the black cab drivers tell me all that business has dried up but it needs leadership for that to happen You need someone with a vision that can go out and leave from the front and say Guess what, this is going to be a safe city We’re going to do it better than anyone else Let’s get people back here Unfortunately, fear spreads, doesn’t it? It’s almost contagious and when it takes control of your amygdala you make emotional decisions and not intelligent logical decisions and that needs to change Yeah, I agree and especially working in what we work in which is people having their fun time So we give great open-top bus tours to people who are having their down time and enjoying their weekend breaks away and that is the polar opposite of the fear of moving which is currently debilitating and is stopping a lot of people from coming and visiting Yeah, that’s true What is the winter looking like for you and also just final thoughts?
31:45 Yeah, I’d love to end on a positive message but we do feel like we’ve said for a few weeks winter is coming and we feel like winter is almost here and it’s going to be a long hard winter for those businesses in tourism We will do whatever we can to keep operating and keep trying to generate some business and giving fantastic tours that we give but the winter is our low season anyway and as it is for much of tourism and furlough is ending on the 31st of October and the government support is dropping away as the sentiment and overwhelming feeling is going in the opposite direction again and that’s a big challenge for us Well, your tours are incredible and you run a great company and a great business and I hope we can find a way to get you back in business and get this whole city back in business I do foresee a future where we are back and thriving and better than before and I honestly think we could lead the world I think we could beat New York to the punch and LA to the punch and surely Paris and Madrid to the punch You know, we’ve got innovation here We’ve got great science We’ve got great entrepreneurship We just got to get the right leadership and the right people on board with the vision I honestly think and I think we could turn it around pretty fast But it’s a different lens You look at it through what’s the solution not what’s the problem I’ve got a famous expression to my team here When you come into my office
33:38 Don’t bring me problems Any joker can bring me problems Bring me solutions That’s why we pay you That’s why we elect you Bring us solutions And look, the reason London exists as a city is because of its economy It’s because people came together and they wanted to do business That’s like why we’re actually here And so let’s not forget that And I’ll say one final thing to the people that are working from home I would argue that six months from now when this multinational company realizes that their London hub, which used to be important isn’t as important anymore because it’s not this hive of creativity and innovation that used to happen in one of the greatest cities in the world Instead, it’s a bunch of people in Kent and Surrey and whatever else And they’ll realize, well, that job could be overseas So I really think we need to remember that the reason London’s great and to a reason the extent that the UK is great is because of our cities and because of our proximity and that great innovation and ideas So just want to throw that out there and make sure that we stay focused on really building back this great economy and really thinking positively is how we can reduce those rates getting people in here, getting people spending So it’s something I’m going to be talking about quite a lot Yeah, I agree And while I think some of my tone has been negative and that probably reflects the difficult position the business is in
35:01 I do believe that London and the other great cities that we work in around the world will come out of this and will come out fighting and come out better And there are bright days ahead We just need to get our way through this to get to them But we will Yes, we will That’s for sure We always have it, right? And we will prevail We will We have the indomitable spirit of London I mean, London has so much going for it But the world knows us as that city too and I think we need to step up and actually act like it Look, I appreciate you, David I appreciate what you’re doing with the business I also appreciate the issues you brought up as far as transport in the city as well And we talked a little bit with the black cab drivers as well as far as the frustration with roads being closed and works being kind of pushed through that didn’t necessarily have consensus And I think we need to take a hard look at this city I think we need to take a hard look at some of the infrastructure we put in and ask ourselves is it the most intelligent, efficient way to get the outcome we want which is cleaner, safer, but also more prosperous And I’d like to have more of those conversations too For sure Excellent Well, thank you very much for your time today My pleasure Big bus tours They can find them in various locations in central London They can, yeah So head to Victoria Head to Westminster Bridge The Tower of London We’ll pick you up from any of those locations
36:26 And give you a great tour All right, great stuff Look, I appreciate everybody listening and watching us If you’ve got any thoughts or comments, please leave them And wherever you’re on to watch this program Let us know what you think Share this to someone if you think they need to know And like I said, I hope our leaders are listening And hopefully they can change some policies and get us back on track So thank you, David Wishing you all the best Thank you very much
