Less could mean more for Cornwall's tourism industry as hospitality chiefs prepare for the county to shine in the global spotlight.
Plain-speaking sector chiefs' main strategy for maintaining the duchy's appeal is: “Don't bugger up Cornwall.”
June's G7 summit will showcase the hotspot to tens of millions of potential new visitors in the world's richest nations – and could trigger a fresh boom for local businesses.
While industry leaders welcome the annual tourist influx to Britain's most westerly and southerly county, they fear too many could harm the overall experience.
Tourism is worth nearly £2billion a year to the local economy – 23% of GDP – and accounts for one in three in private sector jobs, employing 53,000 people.
Cornwall's 530,000-strong permanent population swells by a third during a typical summer, with up to 190,000 extra people a day during the peak.
Five million visit a year.
Cornwall Chamber of Commerce chief executive Kim Conchie estimates Cornwall lost up to £2billion of tourism revenue last year because of the Covid-19 pandemic, which torpedoed Easter holidays at very short notice.
There will be no Easter breaks this year, either.
“It's a matter of clinging on by your fingernails to reopen again,” he admitted.
He wanted less mass tourism packed into three summer months, but higher-value tourism stretched across the year.
It would also mean local youngsters are encouraged into the sector, rather than seeing such jobs as short-term.
Mr Conchie pointed to the success of two famous seafood chefs as a potential driver for expanding the season.
“I would like tourism upgraded – we have got an opportunity to show we are not just pasties and pints but Nathan Outlaw and Rick Stein,” he said.
“If people will pay a premium for that provenance and traceability and artisanal production, I think we can turn that hospitality into something more prosperous and enable people to be properly trained and employed all year round, which comes from having a longer season.”
Some residents resent the summer invasion and there are often tensions between locals and visitors as traffic blocks narrow country lanes.
Locals even have their own word for tourists – “emmets”, meaning “ants” in Cornish.
Mr Conchie said: “The Cornish, we still write songs and sing about farming and fishing and mining – not so much tourism.
“A recent residents' survey to see what Cornish people would like to see changed, a lot of the responses said they would like a little less reliance on tourism.”
Visit Cornwall chief executive Malcolm Bell admitted its “huge” exposure to tourism was problematic.
He said: “We've still got a situation where it's feast or famine.
“In the summer it's gangbusters – and now getting to the point of dreaded over-tourism.”
Cornwall's resident population is growing – meaning more competition with visitors for space.
“Five million visitors translates to 25 million bed nights because the average length of stay is five nights – but we get 19 million day visits from local people out and about,” he said.
Admitting he was “absolutely” worried about too much tourism, he declared he wanted Cornwall “to be a premium destination”.
“The highest priority of the strategy is, 'Don't bugger up Cornwall',” he said.
“We want quality and not quantity, value not volume – happy customers leaving the most amount of money behind.
“Your peak season becomes untenable if it's too many people – not being able to get a table, place on the beach, car parks, traffic is rammed, the locals are being rude.
“We've now got a situation where we probably need to hold August and see it slightly drop.
“The challenge is how do you spread that out?”
Ideas include promoting “workcations” where employees rent a cottage in autumn or winter, grafting in the morning and enjoying the scenery in the afternoon.
Mr Bell echoed warnings that many young locals do not consider jobs in tourism, seeing them as summer posts for students from outside Cornwall before university terms resume.
“There's nothing fundamentally wrong with an entry-level job; what's wrong is for somebody to be stuck in an entry-level job who wishes to progress,” said Mr Bell, who began glass collecting when he was 15.
“If we can extend reasonable levels of business to 10 months, it's a permanent job.”
Two-time Truro Mayor Armorel Carlyon, a sheep farmer in her 80s, said: “The tourist industry is a fragile industry – they discover you and they drop you.
“It has been allowed to become the bread instead of the jam on the bread.
“When I was young the farmers would have some holiday lets that supplemented their income but now it's overtaken all that.”
Pointing to how last year's season started late, she added: “We have seen what happened last year, it was devastating.”
Hotel boss Veryan Palmer, director of the five-star Headland Hotel overlooking Newquay's Fistral Beach, said: “Until the pandemic it possibly wasn't realised in Cornwall how reliant most people are on tourism.”
Her 125-year-old hotel closed and most staff were furloughed when the UK went into lockdown last March.
Six were made redundant, including four voluntarily.
“We had started recruiting everyone for the summer season, we had 180 staff on our books,” she said.
When the hotel reopened, business was “very busy” – despite Mrs Palmer being “very nervous” about bookings.
When her parents Carolyn Armstrong, 68, and John, 73, bought the hotel 43 years ago, the tourist season was “incredibly short”.
But Mrs Palmer, 37, stressed the importance of lengthening the season, with the hotel hosting “storm watching” weekends from November to February.
The 91-room Headland, where the 1990 movie adaptation of Roald Dahl's The Witches was filmed, is also set to host a G7 delegation – days before the scheduled end of all lockdown restrictions heralds the start of peak summer.
“The summit is amazing for Cornwall,” said Mrs Palmer.
“Cornwall is one of the most deprived parts of Europe and part of me wants to think that Cornwall deserves a bit of something.”
The oyster catcher
Terry Major is the last oysterman fishing from Pill Creek in Feock, near Falmouth.
His family has worked the Fal Estuary and Carrick Roads for 150 years.
Today, Terry's 14ft white-hulled hand-dredge punt, Joan, is marooned on a mudflat, the tide out for hours in the world's third largest natural harbour and Europe's deepest.
Instead, he is handpicking winkles, filling his small black bucket as he bends over in the wet shingle.
Terry, of nearby Carnon Downs, began dredging the Fal for oysters in 1965.
“We all love this job. I think it's in the blood, this fishing thing. I tried all sorts in the day but once you start working little boats, tide and time and a bit of fishing, oystering, it's a way of life,” he said.
“I like the peace and quiet and the fresh air, the beauty of nature and the beauty of the river.”
But the industry has been transformed in recent decades.
“If you go back a hundred years there were over a hundred men out here working,” he said.
“There was probably 20 or 30 men plus boats working from this creek.
“I'm the only one left now.
“It's a bit sad there's nobody to carry it on, but there's not a great living in it now – younger people want a steadier job, a better income.
“It's quite insecure, the seasons vary, the markets vary – sometimes we have good catches and sometimes bad.
“Fishing has always been up and down. It was a goodish living years ago.”
Terry, 79, goes out hunting oysters five days a week between 9am and 3pm if the weather allows, netting between 15kg and 20kg each voyage.
The chaos triggered by Boris Johnson's Brexit deal with Brussels – known as the Trade and Cooperation Agreement – has plunged this ancient industry into disarray.
Terry voted for Brexit but is unsure whether he would do so again.
“We listened to the Government and thought everything would be OK,” he said.
“We couldn't see this coming, all these problems.”
But he is desperate for political leaders to help protect this proud trade.
“We've got to carry on working the grounds to keep the grounds clean so that oysters will breed in the summer,” said Terry.
“If we don't gently work them, they will get silted up and the fishery could die – and with it the way of life.”
In less than three months, the Prime Minister will come face to face with Europe's most powerful figures for the first time since the Brexit transition ended.
Roaring jets, including Air Force Once, carrying heads of state and government will touch down at Newquay Airport, formerly RAF St Mawgan, in mid-June.
The state-of-the-art, heavily-protected planes landing on a runway 21 miles from Pill Creek could not be more different from the Falmouth Working Boats dredging for oysters.
The twin-sailed craft are banned from using any electronic equipment and powered purely by sail to preserve the authenticity of their trade, and prevent harm to the fragile oyster beds.
The vessels are a stark reminder of how in Cornwall the ancient and modern collide – never more vividly than in a few months in Carbis Bay.
Terry sells his catch to Martin Laity at Sailors Creek Shellfish, a wholesaler buying native oysters, winkles and queen scallops from the Fal Estuary fishermen and exporting them to Europe.
Martin also deals “much smaller quantities” within the UK, or sells locally from his shop.
Altogether his operation employs about 50 people and he works with about 20 boats.
Martin, whose purification plant is based at Flushing, over the river from Falmouth, said the French were keener on shellfish than Britons.
“It's the culture of their food, and quality food,” he said.
Pro-EU Martin feared quitting the bloc would create new red tape for trading with the Continent when transition arrangements ended on December 31.
“I was a Remainer because I could see the consequences – but it's much, much worse. We were promised that everything would be the same, but it's not, it's really very different,” said the 52-year-old, who joined the industry aged 17 after studying naval architecture at Falmouth College.
“Before Christmas we were exporting between seven and 10 tonnes a week to Europe.
“Now we are sending less than one tonne a week.
“It means the fishermen earn a lot less, they are very concerned for their future.”
A typical order to the EU before the end of the transition could be dispatched for £140.
“Last week we sent one to the same customer, it cost over £700,” said Martin.
He blamed soaring transport costs, export certificates, export charges, import charges and other bureaucracy for the hike.
Martin studied his firm's balance sheet last week, “and now I'm starting to worry”, he admitted.
Warning this was the worst he had known for his business, he added, tongue in cheek: “I'm just a beginner, I've been in it 35 years.”
He hopes the Prime Minister will use the G7 to press the EU's two most powerful figures, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, to trigger an overhaul of the deal on shellfish exports.
“Ultimately, I would like the Government to get off their high horse, go to the EU and iron out the smaller points,” he said.
“The G7 is an ideal time for a demonstration but I don't know if anyone will be in business then.”
The Brexit deal has had a “very bad” impact on fishing, according to Cornwall Chamber of Commerce chief executive Kim Conchie.
But he added that fishermen were “a fairly anarchic crowd” and “paperwork is not what they thought they were going into that industry to do”.
Whether the struggles of the shellfish industry are raised in talks in the G7 summit margins, Terry and Martin hope the way of life will still be around long after the current leaders have left office.
The fruit farmer
Two years after the end of the Second World War, Phil Boddington's grandfather began growing strawberries on land overlooking St Austell Bay, just south west of the popular Cornish fishing village Mevagissey.
Over the years his son and grandson became part of the business, and Boddington's Berries expanded to employ 50 east Europeans, mainly from Romania and Bulgaria, across 25 acres producing vegetables, freshly-picked flowers and fruit, including 200 tonnes of strawberries annually.
But rival farmers were also expanding, relying on cheap foreign labour to supply supermarkets with mixed fruit, vegetables and freshly-picked flowers.
Instead of trying to upscale further and compete, Phil downsized to seven-and-a-half acres to produce only elsanta strawberries in smaller, higher-quality quantities – and turn them into jam.
A 227g jar of strawberry conserve costs £4.50 from its website.
He has not employed eastern European migrants for the last four years, only locals.
“We used to do hundreds of tonnes to the supermarkets, with lots of eastern European pickers,” said Phil, 56, who has 15 poly tunnels each with four rows of strawberry plants.
“In strawberry terms back in the day we were one of the biggest regionally.
“But our costs were higher than our returns.
“We changed our philosophy from supplying the big supermarkets – now we only supply local shops, hotels, farms and restaurants.
“We harvest at 6am and deliver at lunchtime. That's how we compete – we can't feed the millions.
“We are supplying local, using local labour – we have a handful of pickers.”
Harvesting takes place in the mornings from April to July. Spring and summer afternoons are too hot for the plants.
Much of the jam goes into £13, 1.3kg pails or £52 packs of 50, 48g mini jars to be used in cream teas across the county.
Last spring's coronavirus lockdown, just before the lucrative Easter holiday was due to kick off the tourist season, hammered business as tea shops, hotels and B&Bs shut.
“We thought, 'That's it, we're finished',” admitted Phil.
But hamper firms were soon desperate to place jam in cream teas being delivered across the UK.
As well as the pandemic, the other major problem facing businesses over the past 12 months has been Brexit uncertainty and the deal between the UK and EU.
While Boddington's had limited its exposure to the impact, not all Cornish producers were immune to its effects.
Many are suffering from the impact of the Government's pledge to slash immigration, through “taking back control of our borders” once the transition ended on December 31.
A month ago, the owner of the world's biggest farm of daffodil stems said hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of flowers were rotting because of Brexit.
Alex Newey, owner of Varfell Farms at Long Rock, near Penzance, needs 700 workers to pick them half a billion stems a year.
But the pandemic and the end of free movement meant only 400 pickers were available to pluck 500 million stems.
“We can’t harvest them, we don’t have enough pickers to pick them,” Mr Newey said.
“We have significant recruitment drives for local workers to come and harvest crops.
“It’s idealistic to think that because of Covid and the higher than usual unemployment rates that those people would come in and do that work.
"Frankly, the people that we’ve had to come and do this work, the locals, may last a day or two days, but they certainly don’t last two or three months.”
He added: “I would say that a daffodil harvester is to be highly respected because the work is very hard.
“You’re out in the cold weather, it’s in Cornwall, it blows pretty hard down there. It’s wet and you’re bending over picking daffodils for three months.”
A recent council planning hearing was told Varfell farms 2,881 acres and has 52 full time staff as well as 600 seasonal workers.
Councillors heard the daffodil industry pumps £150million a year into to the economy with the firm supplying daffodils to all UK supermarkets as well as exporting them to Europe, the US and Dubai.
Cornwall Chamber of Commerce chief executive Kim Conchie said some producers were going through a second spring of crops “rotting in the field” because of a lack of European migrants.
He cited a broccoli grower who usually employed workers from Poland and Hungary “to make up for the fact that Cornish people and British people don't want to do that sort of hard work anymore”, saw their crop rot last year.
Asked why locals did not want to do the work, he replied: “'Cause it's hard.”
“The wages aren't bad if you put your shoulder to the wheel – whether it's daffodils, potatoes, broccoli or whatever – there is money to be made,” he said.
“But it is back breaking and very manual – not the sort of thing which the UK is famous for these days is it, really?”
The tourism boss
When “Jim and Cindy” pose for a selfie at Land's End or tuck into a cream tea at Tintagel – jam first, obviously – Visit Cornwall boss Malcolm Bell's work will be complete.
He hopes the G7 summit will finally tempt foreign visitors “past Bath” – and a fictional, stereotypical retired American couple are the dream tourists.
“These tend to be people aged 55, 65, who've had their corporate life, they've been planning to do some travel,” he said.
“The profile is called 'Jim and Cindy'. They have worked hard, their children have gone through college and they are now able to take some time out.”
International visitors to Britain tend to spend twice as much cash as domestic tourists.
Often they get as far west as the Somerset city famed for its abbey and Roman baths, but venture no further.
They will have been to London, the Cotswolds and shopping at Bicester Village, Oxon, but will depart the UK before seeing mainland Britain's most southerly and westerly county.
“We are under-represented on overseas (visitors),” said Mr Bell.
“People don't tend to come past Bath, so we have been doing a lot of work in the American, Canadian and Australian markets.
“There is a lot of interest for people who have already been to the UK, probably on their third trip to Europe and the UK, they have done London, the Cotswolds and Scotland.
“Then it's, 'Where else do we go?'”
Hoping to capitalise on the success of BBC drama Poldark, Mr Bell hopes to lure them to the duchy in spring – extending Cornwall's tourist season into when days are longest.
“The back end of April, May, June – it's the lightest time of the year for touring,” he said.
“If you're touring to see somewhere you want to be there when it's the longest days.”
Germany sends the most overseas visitors to Cornwall, followed by the US.
The G7 offers a golden chance to showcase the county to foreign TV viewers.
“It could change the perception of our coast, which for a lot of overseas visitors is piers, pebbles, groynes and 'kiss me quick' hats, because that's the classic British seaside holiday resort,” he said.
“They are going to see a spectacular coast and beaches.”
Gran Ann Mitchell
Gran Ann Mitchell helped turn around her estate and thinks G7 leaders should see the results.
Her semi-detached home in Harmony Close, Redruth, is 14 miles from Carbis Bay.
Speaking to the Mirror, she invited Joe Biden, Boris Johnson and Angela Merkel to take a break from the summit and come and see for themselves progress made over the past decade.
Ann has lived on the estate since 1971 but by 2008 she and neighbours were in despair at the state into which it had fallen, plagued by under-age drinking, drug dealing and antisocial behaviour.
But, following a pioneering police curfew and hard work by locals, Ann is once again proud of her community.
The transformation began 13 years ago when police launched Operation Goodnight, which included a 9pm curfew on under-16s during the six-week summer holidays.
Crime plunged 98% one week into the crackdown.
The move triggered a surge in community action – and the Helping Hands residents' association began a series of small initiatives to improve the area, such as painting lampposts purple.
“Twenty years ago I wouldn't walk up and down this street,” said Ann, cradling her dog Willow.
“We were fed up.”
But the residents' drive to reclaim the neighbourhood worked – and Ann wants the world's most powerful figures to see the effects.
“They should come here so we on the estate could say, 'This is what we've done, this is what residents can do – and we can do a lot more,'” she urged.
“I think the G7 is a good thing, it's going to bring people down to Cornwall.
“I'm hoping it will show Cornwall at its best.
“Cornwall has missed out on a lot – things get to the border between Devon and Cornwall and stop.
“Cornwall doesn't get anything unless it's the summertime and the holidaymakers come down – people only know about Cornwall a couple of months of the year, it's maddening.
“It's nice for a change that it's happening in Cornwall and not in London or abroad.
“But it's disappointing they will only see St Ives – it's beautiful but there are quite a few places in Cornwall; I'd like them to look at the whole of Cornwall.
“I'd bring them here.”
Ann's granddaughter Jemma Phillips, 27, an assistant care manager, is currently on maternity leave after giving birth to her second child.
While she welcomed the summit's focus on climate change, she also wanted Mr Johnson to think of new mums.
“I only get statutory maternity pay which is nine months and only a fraction of my wages,” she said.
“I'd also want them to see the more rundown areas, the areas they need to support rather than fancy St Ives where they have holidaymakers.”
Andrew Knowles
A few streets away, Andrew Knowles is enjoying a socially-distanced chat with pal Liam Porter.
Andrew, 28, is on furlough from a plastics factory and itching to return to work.
He would like G7 leaders to target the economic recovery from Covid-19.
“There are so many people applying for jobs because so many people have lost their jobs,” he said.
He doubted the summit will have much impact – and would prefer cash to be pumped into Cornish communities.
Pointing to a nearby “shabby” tarmac park, its slide, swings and climbing frame empty despite the kids on their way home from school, he said: “They are going to spend a lot of money to make the summit look nice, but there are not really enough opportunities here for young people.
“I would spend the money on better parks for the kids and better opportunities for kids.
“I have lived here all my life but it's different for holidaymakers, they come down and think Cornwall is amazing.”
Liam Porter
Liam, 23, who lives with his mum, was recently made redundant from a clothing factory – a top brand worn by tourists to the duchy.
He blamed losing his job on the delayed start of last year's holiday season, when breaks were banned in early summer.
“Lockdown made a big impact,” he said.
“I can graft but it's hard to get jobs these days. I'm on Universal Credit now. I was on £300 a week and now I get £342 a month.”
The “monthly standard allowance” for single people under-25 is £342.72.
Each summer, as tourists pack out Cornwall's bars, restaurants, hotels, B&Bs and campsites, thousands of young workers flock to the county to bag casual employment.
The seasonal nature of many Cornish jobs is fine for students enjoying long summers and middle-aged nomads lured by the beaches, surfing and fun-packed nights.
But the unreliable nature of such work is no good for the people born and bred in the county, who want to stay and have a secure post all year round.
“There are summer jobs but people come in and get them, work the summer and then the jobs get laid off,” said Liam.
“That's no good for us.”
