BUSINESS owners across the south have been raving about the region’s leisure and tourism industry at a major annual meeting.

The Business South Leisure and Tourism Briefing attracted speakers from across the Solent to share their latest figures.

Bosses from Hampshire County Council, Red Funnel and Southampton Airport all had their say about the potential growth in the tourism market and have now challenged the county to become the top in the UK for attracting oversees guests.

Andrew Bateman, tourism manager for Hampshire County Council, said nearly 10 per cent of all business done in the Business South region is by a leisure and tourism business and the industry has helped create thousands of new jobs.

He also revealed a recent trend for more part-time workers to be employed in leisure and tourism jobs with a rise of 26,000 part-time roles since 2009.

But Jan Halliday, marketing and communications director at Southampton Airport, said she would like to see Hampshire as the top county visited by tourists.

She said: “As a region we’ve got incredibly good transport links by air, road, rail and sea. We’ve also got a good array of tourism attractions.

“But I do wonder if we market ourselves in the same way other regions do and whether we could do more. Over the next 10 years could we become number one.”

Kevin George, CEO of Red Funnel, talked about his company’s plans to boost manufacturing on the Isle of Wight by commissioning a local firm to build their Redjet 6 high speed catamaran.

He said: “We went around the world to find someone to build it for us and we realised the answer was right in front of us. This capability disappeared in 2000 and it will now return after 15 years.”

Matt Goode, Marketing Director at BH Live, explained how the social enterprise industry had expanded beyond Bournemouth to operate in Portsmouth and London and they have growth plans to focus on Southampton in the future.

Promoting the Marwell Zany Zebras, project manager Kirstie Mathieson, said businesses were already getting behind the public art trail and it was set to be a major success in 2016.

Jenny Boland, fundraising manager at the Mayflower Theatre, said: “What a great quality event. It was interesting to hear from the broad range of high quality speakers and the presentations given were all relevant to our organisation. In summary, excellent speakers, content and delegates.”