Steeped in history and culture, England is a hugely popular destination for international visitors, with England’s tourism sector making up over 80% of the UK's total visitor economy.

Tourism is so big in England that Britain is forecast to have a tourism industry worth over £257 billion by 2025.

As we head into the peak period for the travel and tourism industry, companies will be gearing up to open their doors to visitors from across the world. The one visitor you don't want to open your door to is online criminals looking to steal your profits and customer data.

Brighton Pier

Detective Superintendent Andy Richardson, Director for The South East Cyber Resilience Centre advises tourist operators that improving their cyber resilience is imperative to keeping their business safe.

Andy commented: “ The latest data from the International Passenger Survey by the ONS 2019 & 2022 has revealed that over £9.1 billion was spent between July-September 2022 by visitors to the UK. This is a significant increase compared to the £1.8 billion in the same period during 2021.

"The South East was the region with the highest spend from those travelling for tourism and leisure and also the most visited region behind London in this period.

"It’s not just hotels, millions o

f people will be making their bookings online and entrusting their personal information and payment details to private holiday-letting providers, holiday parks, guest houses and many more tourist hotspots. It is therefore crucial these SMEs have cybersecurity measures in place to not only protect themselves but also their customers’ details.”

To help you prepare your employees, systems and devices for the pending peak summer season, The South East Cyber Resilience Centre have pulled together some simple top tips for you to follow. You can find these below:

· Tip 1: Make sure you switch on password protection such as setting a screenlock password, PIN, or other authentication method (such as fingerprint or face unlock).

· Tip 2: Use two-step verification for all accounts

· Tip 3: Avoid using predictable passwords

· Tip 4: Use a password manager

· Tip 5: Change all default passwords

· Tip 6: Train your staff to be able to identify phishing emails

· Tip 7: Make sure that your computer firewall is enabled

· Tip 8: Take regular backups of your important data, and test that they can be restored

· Tip 9: Update all software, applications and devices with the latest security patches.

How can The South East Cyber Resilience Centre help SME's to tackle the threat posed by cybercrime?

We provide many free resources designed to improve your #online security, from checklists to Incident Response templates, there's something for everyone. Get yours today and receive our FREE welcome pack here https://www.secrc.police.uk/free-information-pack

We hope this will be useful for you but if you have any further questions or would like to know how we can help your business, please get in touch.