VisitBritain plays down UK unrest
VisitBritain is banking on “resilience” to prevent any lasting damage to UK tourism in light of this week’s unrest.
The tourism body issued a statement this afternoon stressing that the “isolated incidents” are happening away from key visitor attractions.
“Transport services, including inbound flights, are all running a good service and major tourist attractions across London and the rest of Britain remain open and unaffected, meaning international visitors can continue to enjoy the UK as per usual,” it said.
While London stayed relatively quiet last night, problems arose in Manchester, Salford, Liverpool, Nottingham and Birmingham.
Yesterday, the prime minister held a COBRA (a high level government crisis group) meeting and has subsequently announced that Parliament will be recalled tomorrow (Thursday).
Meanwhile, the Football Association has announced that the England v Holland friendly scheduled at Wembley tonight has been cancelled.
“While we will continue to monitor the situation, it is still too early to anticipate the effect on inbound tourism to Britain,” said a VisitBritain spokesman.
“However Britain has a strong and positive image overseas and we hope these incidents will be short-lived and that tourism will show its customary resilience.”
by Bev Fearis
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Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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