The move paves the way for two years of negotiations – with the UK expected to be “out” of the EU by March 2019 – and how the Brexit story plays out will determine our futures and the futures of generations to come.

The government has a clear mandate from the British people to embark on negotiation to leave the EU, yet in a democracy, a mandate is not a signal for the opposition to fall silent.

We, as an industry, have a duty to express our concerns and fears to the administration, and with only two years to hammer out a divorce deal, the government has a challenge of historic proportions on its hands. Indeed, when Greenland left the EU it took three years for negotiations to be completed, and it has a population of just 60,000.

In January, Theresa May made it quite clear that Brexit cannot result in continued membership of the single market, despite Margaret Thatcher declaring in 1992 that the single market (and the Channel Tunnel) was going to “make a historic difference to the future of the whole of Europe and the UK’s place in Europe”. How things change.

According to the former Polish foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, the UK will be humiliated during the negotiations – any deal will require the agreement of all 27 other nations, and they will not want a state that is not a member of the EU and the single market to be better off. So the new agreement, if there is one, will have to equate to less than the current EU membership.

My anxiety is that the gain will be very small and the pain very large.

Steven Freudmann is chairman of the Institute of Travel & Tourism