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More money must be made available for UK tourist attractions in order to support the growth of the travel sector, an industry association has claimed.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Robin Broke, director of the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions (Alva), said that 2007 was a reasonably good year for British tourism.

However, he warned that investment in the industry was insufficient to ensure that it achieves the United Kingdom's share of the global travel market.

'We continued to under-fund the marketing of our tourism product and we also continue to fail to take tourism seriously enough,' Mr Broke said.

'The entire industry, this £85bn industry, has come together on this. It is the first time in a decade that I am aware of and we are saying now is the time to start taking this industry seriously.'

The Alva director said that one of the issues that needs to be addressed is investment in tourism organisation VisitBritain, which has been on the same level of funding for ten years and will see its budget cut to £40.6m in 2010-11.

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