Last year the UK tourism economy was worth £125.7 billion, which is equivalent to 9% of the UK’s GDP and could buy 800 Boeing 747s! The UK is the 8th largest international tourism destination ranked by visitor numbers and that the Royal family generate close to £500 million every year for British tourism. With a second royal baby on the way, 2015 can only mean great things for British Tourism.
The UK’s most popular tourist attractions are varied, from the mystical, historic Stone Henge to the grandeur of The Tower of London there is a wealth of attractions on offer for tourists. Why do people travel to Great Britain? Every year approximately 2 in 5 inbound visits to the UK were for a holiday, and almost a quarter (24%) were for business. A whopping 4 in 10 trips to the UK last year were to visit friends or relatives.
London is a hugely popular worldwide tourist destination, in 2013 along a staggering 16.8 million visitors spent time in the capital, which is the equivalent of the entire population of the Netherlands! Tourists spent just over £11bn in London alone and counts for 54% of all inbound visitor spending. With that kind of cash you could buy Buckingham Palace 11 times over!
The British tourism industry also supports jobs. Today one in 12 jobs in the UK is directly or indirectly supported by tourism. Since 2010 almost 300,000 jobs have been created in Tourism, which is almost the population of Nottingham! Britons taking ‘staycations’ help to boost the economy every year, in 2012 British residents took 57.7 million overnight domestic holidays, spending £13.8 billion in the local economy. There were 18.9 million overnight business trips, which generated a whopping £4.5 billion and 45.1 million overnight trips were made to visit friends and relatives that generated £5.1 billion.
