THANK goodness for the credit crunch and the strong euro.

Why? Well apparently, together with soaring airfares, they will be the key to the revival of our tourism industry. And not before time.

Perhaps holiday destinations – like fashion trends – come and go and we are about to see a run on buckets and spades and those white socks which are compulsorily worn with sandals and a string vest.

Whatever the case, it is always good to know that someone somewhere is doing all right out of a recession.

‘Yes, yes, we know about your repossessions but let us help you through the pain with a holiday in Jersey.’

Budget hotel chain Travelodge are apparently sniffing around British holiday resorts as Brits short of cash look a little closer to home for their annual two weeks in the sun (well, praying for it anyway) and Jersey is on their list.

It is quite possible that they haven’t actually looked at the cost of getting a flight here yet and will change their minds when they do so but, nevertheless, they have shown enough interest to look on a map, it would seem.

Apparently Jersey is ideal because it has a distinct lack of no frills hotels. Whether this is a good or bad thing is a different matter.

Surely, however, the flight issue is something that takes the gloss off that place on the leader board of ideal locations – or maybe the price of the flight is the reason why we need a Travelodge?

If you are looking for a holiday in Britain why would you choose to go somewhere where the flight alone is virtually the same as a flight to a European destination – especially when you can’t guarantee the weather here anymore than you can in, say, Cornwall.

Which brings us neatly to me talking about my holiday which was, strangely enough, in Cornwall (it was lovely thank you, but too much cider). The first thing to say is that getting there and staying there were not cheap, so the only way this would swing in financial favour of home over abroad would be the effect of currency transactions in the latter.

What was striking, however, were the amount of tourists about in the Cornish towns.

There were lots of them, the kind of number I seem to remember padding the Jersey streets in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Admittedly, the mists of time may be distorting the numbers that were actually here, but there never seemed to be a shortage, whereas now it is always a bit of a surprise to be asked directions to St Owbin’s.

Cornwall was packed. Even the mediocre restaurants had no shortage of clientele and guest house vacancies were equally short on the ground. And according to local proprietors, 2008 has been a bad year so far.

It was quite an experience coming from somewhere which names itself as a tourist destination to go to one which was over-run with actual tourists.

Parts of Jersey are every bit as beautiful as parts of Cornwall. Both have their fair share of tat, although being on holiday I chose not to go to the bits of Cornwall that might be. But that, I wondered, might be part of the problem in Jersey. There is not enough of it for the visitor to avoid bits. In the end they will see the Waterfront even if they try to drive past in a thick fog.

Is the Island trying to be too many things? There’s the whole international finance centre thing and the quaint tourist destination thing and the expensive chic hotel thing and then the rural idyll thing all butting up against one another in a very small space. The best hope – and not just for the tourists – is that someone finds a way of making money out of quaint and rural.

Jersey’s beauty will continue to be her best selling point when we can’t bring the price of the journey down any further, which makes the question of a Travelodge (snobby sniffing aside) a difficult one. The budget might bring in the punters but it is unlikely to be among our most beautiful buildings.
Then again, neither is the Radisson.