Breaking records in the tourist industry

Tourism is one of the few industries in the UK which does not depend on a trade deal being made with anyone, and is actually benefiting from the weakness of sterling. VisitBritain predicts that, by the end of this year, the number of overseas visitors to the UK will have increased 6% over 2016 to 39.7 million with spending up 14% to £25.7bn. These numbers reflect the fact that the cheaper pound is allowing each visitor to Britain to spend far more in pounds, without the need to exchange any more of their own currency, very much to the advantage of UK businesses providing the goods and services that they are buying.

There is also evidence that more of us stayed in the UK for our holiday this summer, rather than face the added cost of buying foreign currency for a holiday abroad. From January to June this year, domestic overnight holidays in England rose 7% to a record 20.4 million with visitors spending £4.6bn - a rise of 17% and another record. More evidence comes from a sharp fall in UK tourists' debit card spending when abroad which was down nearly 13% in August compared with the same month in 2016.

The BBC report quotes British Tourist Authority chairman Steve Ridgway. He said tourism was worth £127bn annually to the economy, is 2.5 times bigger than the automotive industry, and employs 3 million people in the UK. But he emphasises that the industry cannot be sustained by cheap sterling alone - "We must continue to invest in developing world-class tourism products, getting Britain on the wish-list of international and domestic travellers and we must make it easy for visitors to make that trip." 

And we must also try to spread the benefit of spending by those visitors beyond the tourism hub of London, so that more of the UK's economy benefits. The top 11 visitor attractions are all in London, with the most visited destination out of the capital being Chester Zoo at number 12. There is some interesting data here for visitor figures in 2016, which could be the basis for an interesting student activity to devise a marketing mix to raise demand for some of Britain's key tourist destinations.