Inbound tourism facing uphill battle
British Travel Trade Fair Special Report: Britain’s tourism industry is facing a number of threats as it battles intense competition to attract international visitors.
VisitBritain head of international research Alex Flack said falling arrivals from key markets, a declining spend per visitor and the UK’s perception as an expensive country to visit are all impacting the industry.
Countries and regions, particularly Asia, are also promoting their own domestic industry, which is hitting foreign travel.
Speaking the British Travel Trade Fair in Birmingham, Flack admitted a record number of visitors in 2004 was a deceptive statistic.
“More and more people are coming on short breaks of one to three nights so we are finding the spend per visit is declining,” she said. “If we are to hit the annual visitor earnings target of 100 billion pounds by 2010 we need to address this problem.”
She said it needs five short break visitors to spend the equivalent of one tourist on a fortnight holiday.
Despite the overall record high, several major markets are at least 50,000 down on their own records, with the US sending half a million fewer visitors to Britain than the 2000 high of four million.
“The key worries are the US and Japan,” said Flack. “Arrivals from the US in 2005 were well down even before the London bombings which we believe is linked to the weak dollar and unfavourable exchange rate.”
The number of people coming to Britain purely for a holiday has also fallen, from 45% to 34%, with increasing numbers visiting friends and relatives or arriving on business.
“Inter-Asia travel is also big now,” said Flack. “People in that region realise they can travel short haul within Asia and experience different cultures so why should they go long haul to places like Britain?
“China and the US are also starting to understand what a goldmine domestic tourism can be.”
Flack added that tourism chiefs need to convince people that while Britain is perceived as expensive, it also represents good value.
Report by Steve Jones
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