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Telegraph
6 days ago
- Business
- Telegraph
London's crime epidemic ‘is scaring away tourists'
Tourists are becoming too scared to visit London because of surging levels of phone thefts, the boss of a £2.2bn hotel empire has warned. Greg Hegarty, the chief executive of PPHE Hotels, which runs 51 locations across Europe, said the company had ramped up its spending on security because travellers were increasingly worried about high crime rates in the capital. He said: 'If I'm looking at the South Bank of London, and Oxford Street, you can't carry a mobile phone in the street any more. You have got tourists now who are becoming less and less confident in coming or going to certain areas of London.' The issue is becoming a 'major concern' for recreational travellers and corporate clients who frequently host events such as conferences at PPHE's London hotels, he said. As a result, spending on security by the hotel group has roughly doubled compared with pre-pandemic levels. Mr Hegarty said: 'I want our customers to feel safe and valued, because it makes a significant difference. They want to know that they can sit in a bar and put their bag down, or sit in the bar and put a mobile phone down instead of being targeted by a gang.' However, he warned that the crime epidemic was damaging the capital's reputation as a good place to visit or do business. Robbery and theft rates have soared in London in recent years, with mobile phone thefts of particular concern. More than 70,000 phones were stolen in the city in 2024, up from over 52,400 thefts in 2023. In the City of Westminster, reported thefts from a person – a crime that covers phone snatching – rose from around six per 1,000 people in September 2021 to more than 20 per 1,000 by September 2024, according to police figures. Beyond phones, people have also had luxury watches stolen from their wrists by gangs in the street or on public transport, or had other valuable items taken, such as jewellery. Mr Hegarty said: 'It's for sure increasing. People are reading [Tripadvisor posts] that are saying 'I'm walking along Westminster Bridge, and I've had my phone stolen'.' Phone theft has become a booming black market industry worth around £50m per year, with many devices thought to be shipped abroad once they are stolen. The crime wave has sparked a clampdown by the Metropolitan Police, which said it 'stepped up' operations to catch phone thieves and bring them to justice. However, Mr Hegarty questioned how effective these efforts were. He said: 'I have had the police force come into one of our hotels, the general manager told me, saying 'Could you give this leaflet to customers?' which says to be careful of your mobile phones and your watches. 'What are you going to do if you're a family of five checking in from the US, being given a leaflet like that when you check into a hotel? It's not what you want.' Mr Hegarty said he believed petty crimes were being 'investigated a lot more' in other regions where PPHE does business. 'There's a lot more active policing elsewhere. When you go to Amsterdam they have got a very tough stance on certain behaviours now,' he said. Founded in 1989 by Eli Papouchado, an Israeli property developer, PPHE is one of Europe's largest hotel companies. It oversees a £2.2bn property portfolio of hotels, and is best known for the art'otel and Park Plaza brands. The company turned over revenues of more than £440m in 2024. Last year it opened the doors of its latest investment, a £310m new art'otel in Hoxton, east London. The hotel sits in a purpose-built 27-floor tower complete with a 25th floor restaurant, a luxury spa and its own art gallery – with a collection that includes two works by Banksy. Mr Hegarty called it a 'mammoth' undertaking that he hoped would boost tourism to the area and contribute to the local economy. However, he cautioned that recent political events had dampened his enthusiasm for doing business in the UK. Mr Hegarty said the company was having to scale back its investment plans and cut jobs as a result of Rachel Reeves's decision to hit employers with a £25bn tax raid in her October budget last year. Mr Hegarty said: 'We have had to react. We have had to make cutbacks, we are consolidating our corporate office, we are reducing headcount in hotels – which is unfortunate.' PPHE employs almost 3,000 people across the UK. 'We're overlooked and overtaxed' The Treasury has insisted higher taxes on businesses are necessary to help plug an alleged 'black hole' in the nations finances left by the former Conservative government. However, hospitality chiefs have been angered by the way in which the Chancellor went about raising revenue. Ms Reeves's decision to not only increase the rate of employers' National Insurance (NI) contributions but also lower the threshold at which it is paid has hit pubs, restaurants and hotels particularly heavily because of the high numbers of lower-paid and part-time staff these businesses employ. Mr Hegarty said: 'The Government overlooks hospitality. We're overlooked and overtaxed. If you go on your high street, you've got cafes which can't open, you've got restaurant brands which have been around for years going bankrupt, and you've got hotels closing. 'I think we've been in the worst place we've been in decades as an industry.' PPHE still plans to keep opening hotels in the UK regardless of the tax raid. However, Mr Hegarty said the burden of increased labour costs meant it would prioritise 'select service' hotels – which rely more on technology and offer fewer amenities compared to traditional 'full service' locations. Mr Hegarty said: 'I am not bringing a full service hotel back on to this market until I see things improving. [Select service] is a nice level of accommodation and services, but for example there'll be no room service, there'll be no kitchens, it'll be heavily automated. So for me, that's impacted jobs in the community.' He was equally dispirited by the prospect of more tax rises in the autumn. Another raid looks increasingly likely after the recent about-turn by Sir Keir Starmer on winter fuel payments and a likely policy change on the two-child benefit cap. The Telegraph recently revealed that Angela Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister, wrote to Ms Reeves in the spring demanding a spate of further rises – such as removing inheritance tax relief for AIM shares and changing the tax on company dividends. Mr Hegarty said: 'It just makes London less attractive. London once was one of the global financial powerhouses, and we are having people leave us to go to Amsterdam. I can tell you now that customers I've lost in London, I've actually gained in Amsterdam.' A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: 'By intensifying our efforts, we're catching more perpetrators and protecting people from having their phones stolen in the capital. The Met is also working with other agencies and Government to tackle the organised criminality driving this trade and calling on tech companies to make stolen phones unusable.' A Treasury spokesman said: 'We are a pro-business Government, and we know the vital importance of the hospitality sector to local communities and the wider economy, which is why we are supporting them with business rates relief, cutting duty on draught pints, capping corporation tax, and are protecting the smallest businesses from the employer National Insurance rise – which is helping to fund the NHS.'
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
At least 26 tourists killed by suspected militants in Kashmir attack
At least 26 tourists have been killed and ten injured after suspected militants opened fire at a popular local tourist destination in Kashmir during a scheduled four-day visit to the country by the US vice-president JD Vance. Most of the victims were Indian, although two foreign nationals were also reportedly among the dead. The attack occurred in the Baisaran Valley, a picturesque meadow in Pahalgam, a well-known tourist town located 30 miles south-east of Srinagar, the region's main city, in what officials are describing as the deadliest attack on civilians in the region in recent years. At about 3pm local time, a group of gunmen, who apparently approached tourists from the direction of the nearby mountains, emerged from a dense pine forest. Graphic videos shared by locals on social media showed injured tourists lying in pools of blood, while their relatives screamed and pleaded for help. Due to the area's lack of road access, helicopter services were deployed to evacuate the wounded. Describing the scene, a local tour guide told the AFP news agency he reached the scene after hearing gunfire and transported some of the wounded away on horseback. 'I saw a few men lying on the ground looking like they were dead,' said Waheed, who gave only one name. A female survivor told the PTI news agency: 'My husband was shot in the head while seven others were also injured in the attack.' Omar Abdullah, the region's top elected official, wrote on social media: 'This attack is much larger than anything we've seen directed at civilians in recent years.' Government officials said the dead included tourists from the Indian states of Karnataka, Odisha and Gujarat and two foreign nationals. At least six others were wounded. India's prime minister, Narendra Modi, decried the 'heinous act' cut short a visit to Saudi Arabia. 'Those behind this heinous act will be brought to justice ... they will not be spared. Their evil agenda will never succeed. Our resolve to fight terrorism is unshakable and will only grow stronger,' said Modi, who met with Vance the day before. Donald Trump expressed his 'full support' to India in a call with Modi late on Tuesday, Delhi's foreign ministry said. The scene of the attack was cordoned off as police launched an operation to track down the attackers. According to local police officials, two to three gunmen opened indiscriminate fire on tourists in the area, which is accessible only by foot or on horseback, before fleeing the scene. A witness speaking to India Today said: 'The shooting occurred right in front of us. At first we thought it was just firecrackers, but when we heard others screaming we rushed out of there to save ourselves.' Another witness, who also did not reveal his name, said: 'We didn't stop running for 4km … I'm still trembling.' Protests erupted in several areas of the Indian-administered Kashmir condemning the attack, with a rally led by rightwing vigilantes in the city of Jammu blaming Pakistan. A militant group identifying itself as 'Kashmir Resistance' has claimed responsibility for the attack in a social media message. The group cited anger over Indian settlement of over 85,000 'outsiders', which it said was driving a 'demographic change' in the region. The mountain region is claimed in full but ruled in part by both India and Pakistan, and has been riven by militant violence since the start of an anti-Indian insurgency in 1989. Tens of thousands of people have been killed, although violence has tapered off in recent years. India revoked Kashmir's special status as an autonomous state in 2019, splitting the state into two federally administered territories – Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh. Who controls Kashmir? The region in the foothills of the Himalayas has been under dispute since India and Pakistan came into being in 1947. Both claim it in full, but each controls a section of the territory, separated by one of the world's most heavily militarised borders: the "line of control" based on a ceasefire border established after a 1947-48 war. China controls another part in the east. India and Pakistan have gone to war a further two times over Kashmir, most recently in 1999. Artillery, mortar and small arms fire are still frequently exchanged. How did the dispute start? After the partition of colonial India in 1947, small, semi-autonomous "princely states" across the subcontinent were being folded into India or Pakistan. The ruler of Kashmir dithered over which to join until tribal fighters entered from Pakistan intent on taking the region for Islamabad. Kashmir asked Delhi for assistance, signing a treaty of accession in exchange for the intervention of Indian troops, who fought the Pakistanis to the modern-day line of control. In 1948, the UN security council called for a referendum in Kashmir to determine which country the region would join or whether it would become an independent state. The referendum has never been held. In its 1950 constitution, India granted Kashmir a large measure of independence. But since then it has eroded some of that autonomy and repeatedly intervened to rig elections and dismiss and jail democratically elected leaders. What was Kashmir's special status? Kashmir's special status, given in exchange for joining the Indian union, had been in place since 14 May 1954. Under article 370, the state was given a separate constitution, a flag, and autonomy over all matters except for foreign affairs and defence. An additional provision, article 35a, prevented people from outside the state buying land in the territory. Many Kashmiris believed this was crucial to protecting the demography of the Muslim-majority state and its way of life. The ruling Bharatiya Janata party repeatedly promised to scrap such rules, a long-term demand of its Hindu nationalist support base. But analysts warned doing so would almost certainly ignite unrest. On Wednesday 31 October 2019, the government formally revoked Kashmir's special status. The government argued that the provision had only ever been intended to be temporary and that scrapping it would boost investment in Kashmir. Critics, however, said the move would escalate tensions with Pakistan – which quickly called India's actions illegal – and fuel resentment in Kashmir, where there is an insurgency against Indian rule. What do the militants want? There has been an armed insurgency against Indian rule over its section of Kashmir for the past three decades. Indian soldiers and Pakistan-backed guerrillas fought a war rife with accusations of torture, forced disappearances and extra-judicial killing. Until 2004, the militancy was made up largely of Pakistani and Afghan fighters. Since then, especially after protests were quashed with extreme force in 2016, locals have made up a growing share of the anti-India fighters. For Indians, control of Kashmir – part of the country's only Muslim-majority state – has been proof of its commitment to religious pluralism. For Pakistan, a state founded as a homeland for south Asian Muslims, it is the last occupied home of its co-religionists. Michael Safi and Rebecca Ratcliffe This also allowed local authorities to issue domicile rights to outsiders, allowing them to get jobs and buy land in the territory. Authorities have described the attack as targeted and intended to spread terror among the tourists visiting Kashmir. Tuesday's attack seems to be a major shift in the regional conflict where tourists for many years have largely been spared from violence despite a spate of targeted killings of Hindus, including immigrant workers from Indian states, after New Delhi ended the region's semi-autonomy in 2019 and drastically curbed dissent, civil liberties and media freedoms. The Baisaran area attracts tens of thousands of Indian tourists daily, especially during the summer months, when temperatures in mainland India soar. Indian army and paramilitary forces have been deployed to the area to search for the attackers. In recent years, militants have increasingly targeted security forces in the region's mountainous and forested areas. Kashmir remains one of the most heavily militarised zones in the world and is claimed in full by both India and Pakistan, although each controls only a part. The two countries have fought multiple wars over the region.
