Hodge Urges Tourism-Led Transformation for UK Overseas
Former UK minister Margaret E. Hodge has urged the UK to prioritise tourism as the primary vehicle for economic diversification across its overseas territories, proposing UK support in return for stronger financial transparency measures. The call, reported by the Financial Times and expanded on by Virgin Islands News Online (VINO), comes as the UK faces mounting international pressure to push jurisdictions such as the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Gibraltar and Montserrat to crack down on illicit finance.
Hodge has renewed calls for the United Kingdom to back a tourism-led economic transformation across its overseas territories, including the British Virgin Islands (BVI). Reporting in the Financial Times first highlighted her recommendations and VINO later expanded on her appeal, arguing the UK should support tourism growth in return for the territories meeting enhanced financial transparency standards.
Hodge made the comments after a visit to the Virgin Islands in September 2025, where she met financial services stakeholders and tourism operators. She told local audiences that while "financial services is a legitimate business" in the territory, the BVI is "on a journey" to strengthen measures against illicit finance.
Those lines were reported by VINO following her visit. Her intervention comes as international scrutiny of traditional offshore finance hubs — notably the Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Gibraltar and Montserrat — continues to rise. Regulators and governments around the world are pressing for greater disclosure, including the establishment of beneficial ownership registers.
The BVI has already accepted the UK framework for Legitimate Access to Registers of Beneficial Ownership and has indicated it would consider public registers if a global standard is agreed, a point Hodge referenced in her remarks. According to the Financial Times and VINO, Hodge urged the UK to deploy persuasion and incentives rather than heavy-handed mandates to secure compliance.
She argued the UK has a responsibility to help territories transition to sustainable economic models, recommending that tourism become the primary focus for economic diversification and resilience. Hodge's proposal envisages UK support that could include financial, technical and policy advice to help overseas territories build tourism infrastructure, develop workforce skills and improve marketing capacity.
For the BVI this could translate into more investment in airports and ports, expanded hotel capacity, targeted training programmes and stronger environmental safeguards to protect the marine and coastal assets tourism relies on. She also noted practical constraints that must be addressed for tourism to scale, pointing out the absence of an international airport able to handle larger inbound flights as a limiting factor for the territory's growth.
That observation was highlighted by both the Financial Times and VINO as part of the case for targeted UK investment. Local leaders, industry stakeholders and residents will face choices about how to balance the long-standing financial services sector with new tourism-led opportunities.
Hodge frames the debate as a transition: using UK support and international compliance to move away from secrecy-linked revenues toward diversified, sustainable sources of employment and income. As discussion continues in the UK and among the territories, Hodge's comments add weight to an evolving policy conversation about how best to protect both the integrity of global finance and the livelihoods of residents in the UK's overseas territories.
Primary source: VINO