New figures showing a significant recovery in travellers coming to the UK is ‘’encouraging’’ though major challenges remain, VisitBritain chief executive Sandie Dawe said today.
She spoke after latest figures issued by the Office for National Statistics showed that in July 2010, the number of overseas residents coming to Britain was 5 per cent higher compared with July 2009. The value of what they spent was 2 per cent higher.
Holiday visits remained steady over the past the year as a whole, but data for the three months to July shows an increase of 8 per cent. Visits to friends and relatives continue to be affected significantly, down 7 per cent compared to the corresponding period of 2009.
Encouragingly, after steep declines a year earlier, business visits have increased 3 per cent so far this year, although they remain at significantly lower levels than before the economic downturn hit.
Sandie said: ‘’These new figures confirm that international tourism to Britain is continuing to recover. Although major challenges remain, and there is some way to go before we reach the record numbers of visits seen back in 2007, it is particularly encouraging to see that inbound holiday tourism began to grow again in the past three months.
‘’The highly attractive exchange rate for sterling is a key factor behind this trend because it is making the UK very affordable for European and US travellers, a fact that VisitBritain is making a great deal of in its promotions overseas.
‘’It has now become well established that the value of spending by foreign visitors is growing at a faster rate than the volume of visitors, because the good rate tourists are getting is enabling them to spend more when they get here,’’ Sandie said.
It is significant that the recovery in visitor numbers has occurred in the run up to July, which is a crucial month of the tourism calendar. Good figures then tend to suggest that the following months will follow suit, news that will come as a relief to hard pressed tourism businesses that had to cope with a decline in overall visits over the whole of 2009.
Sandie Dawe spoke as VisitBritain launched its latest annual review which concluded that the longer term prospects for attracting more foreign tourists to the UK appeared to be looking positive. This latest hard evidence from the July figures, which is compiled from the Government’s authoritative International Passenger Survey, comes as a positive sign.
In his foreward to the review VisitBritain chairman Christopher Rodrigues said independent research had indicated that over the next decade spending by incoming visitors is forecast to almost double to £31 billion.
Tourism is already the fifth largest sector of the British economy, worth £115 billion in 2009. It is our third biggest foreign exchange earner and our fourth fastest growing industry. But Mr Rodrigues warned that the competition from other countries to entice overseas travellers is getting tougher. Many more destinations are being developed. Foreign governments see the potential for tourism and are investing increasingly in their tourism industry and its promotion.
‘’In Britain we have for many years treated tourism as a golden goose that will lay eggs without being nurtured or fed. That puts the growth potential of our industry at risk,’’ Mr Rodrigues said.
‘’ We can only hope that with a new Government the tide may be turning. In a rousing keynote speech on tourism the Prime Minister outlined plans to develop ‘the strongest possible tourism strategy’, engaging with businesses and local authorities, stimulating growth in the private sector and revisiting policies like visas, airport security and infrastructure that significantly impact tourism,’’ he said.
Mr Rodrigues added: ‘ With continued investment by the industry and focused government support, the industry can be one of Britain’s best performing sectors over the next decade, growing faster than industries like pharmaceuticals, manufacturing and communications, and creating an additional quarter of a million jobs by 2020.’’
Visit Britain was ‘’well placed’’ to achieve the clear priorities the new Government has set: to harness the 2012 Games to create a permanent tourism legacy and to help Britain regain its position in the top five tourism destinations in the world, he said.
The organisation was not ‘’immune’’ from economic realities and the cuts the Government was requiring across the public sector. In the past year the organisation had continued to tighten its operations, focusing on a limited number of key marketing messages that project Britain as a dynamic and contemporary destination and in particular it had harnessed potential of the digital world to get more for less.
‘I am confident that we will come through the challenges ahead an even stronger organisation to deliver growth to inbound tourism,’’ he said.
