VisitBritain's Framework Review, published recently, makes an admirable case for the government to take tourism more seriously - something Ministers and officials have singularly failed to do in recent years.

Worth over £110bn annually, employing over two million people in all related industries, the industry is critically vulnerable in the present recession. The review pulls no punches. It suggests that in the absence of sufficient infrastructure investment, a (potential) 10 per cent drop in overseas visitor arrivals to the UK over the next five years would lead to 67,000 fewer jobs and an accumulative loss of almost £10bn by 2012.

If the likely loss of domestic visitors to overseas travel is also taken into account, the decline would be 114,000 jobs and the loss would rise to £20bn. A decline of almost 20 per cent in tourism business revenues - which such a decline would inevitably reflect - would not only lead to job losses. It would also lead to a large number of business failures, particularly as so many are small, independent owner operators with limited financial resources.

Of course, there is an upside. The review says that if the government took a more proactive approach to tourism, overseas visitor numbers would potentially increase to 49million by 2018, creating a UK tourism market of £136bn and creating more than 50,000 more jobs. Decline or growth? Or just muddle through? VisitBritain's central theme is that the government's response to tourism has been hesitant and confused. The review might encourage it to be more positive.

In the most obvious case, the lack of funding for promoting the 2012 Olympic Games means, in the review's own words, that "there is a real risk that the full Olympic legacy opportunity cannot be delivered. We reap what we sow." The warning is stark. There are other examples of government confusion and inertia. Responsibility for tourism is split between a number of competing national boards, government agencies, RDAs and local authorities. All are publicly-funded but few bother to work - or even to communicate - with each other. So money is wasted.

VisitEngland, representing a country which attracts three-quarters of all overseas and domestic visitors to the UK, has only just been set up. This may well be able to bring some order into the chaos of conflicting interests but only if there is powerful leadership; the key chief executive appointment has still to be made. VisitBritain's role in this melange of interests has still to be defined. Circumscribed by a lack of adequate funding, the review admits that the latest cuts in the organisation's core budget have compromised its ability to maintain, let alone build market share, and to exploit fully the marketing opportunities around the world.

In other words, without some action, expect the UK's share of world tourism - which has slid from 6.5 per cent of world tourism spend in 1980 to 3.8 per cent in 2005 - to slide even further. But what is VisitBritain's purpose other than to promote Britain more widely as a tourism destination? If it admits this purpose is compromised, shouldn't government become extremely concerned?

The DCMS is the government department responsible for tourism yet the tourism minister's remit is part of a much wider brief and tourism appears to come very low down in the department's priorities. It is curious that there is no actual tourism section in DCMS to oversee the biggest industry in the department's portfolio. Other government departments (for example BERR, Home Office) have an equal influence over tourism, yet there is no cross-Whitehall, cross-ministerial group to try to co-ordinate often conflicting government policies.

The BHA was actually involved in discussions to set one up some years ago, but nothing came of this effort. This does not inspire confidence in one being set up as a result of one of VisitBritain's more significant recommendations - a recommendation that the Barbara Follett MP, the tourism minister, has accepted. Government departments are notorious for keeping their cards close to their chest and genuine cross-consultation is difficult to bring about on a regular basis with so many different interests. Tourism deserves special treatment because of its importance to the economy, but will it get it?

VisitBritain's Ten Point Strategy is as laudable as apple pie but the chances of implementing it - and maintaining UK tourism as one of the nation's key economic drivers, at the same time making it competitive on the world stage - are more dependent on a new government approach than on any industry initiative. At the present time, the hotel industry alone has invested more than £25bn in the last five years and opened nearly 1,000 hotels. Private enterprise is totally committed. Is the government? What is needed now by the industry is more public support (not public funding but a sympathetic tax and fiscal regime), a lively recognition of the huge benefits that a successful tourism industry can bring to Britain, a deeper understanding of its needs, and (most important of all) a determination to implement VisitBritain's review's well-argued strategy.

This review points tourism down the right road but the government's role is now critical. If it fails to take tourism seriously after this report, it will have only itself to blame for the consequences.