New data from ReportLinker shows that the UK has consistently been seen as one of the favorite tourist destination by international travelers. Weekends away in the late spring and summer months are their top choice.
The UK is especially liked as a place to enjoy short stays as tourist arrivals at holiday and short stay accommodation exceeded once again the two million mark in July 2017.
The United Kingdom is such a tourism destination that it had far and away the largest air transport industry of any European Union member nation as of 2016. The size of the UK’s air transport industry helps the country’s economy by incentivising the creation of jobs and salary raises in the air travel industry, while making the national airlines’ profit margins bigger than they’d otherwise be through the number of seat tickets purchased. So, business travel aside, the UK air transport industry reaps great economic benefits from the seasonally explosive tourism industry there.
This “boom” in the UK tourism industry benefits the nation’s economy in plenty of other ways. Since 2010, tourism has been the fastest growing sector in the UK in employment terms according to a report by VisitBritain.com. Hotels, motels, and B&B establishments consistently need to create more job positions as the net occupancy rate of bedrooms in the UK reached a record number of 83.4% last summer.
Local restaurants, taverns, food suppliers, and breweries obviously enjoy increased demand for their services when the tourists are in town. Transportation companies—providers of cabs, remises, and busses—will collect more fares with more people moving about, especially when those additional people are likely not to have their own car (but the car rental companies like tourists, too!). Entertainment providers and cultural institutes such as museums profit from a big trade in tourism. All of these are in addition to the most obvious beneficiaries, the tour organisers and guides.
One of the ways in which technology is affecting the British as well as the global tourism industry is through the Internet. Research from ReportLinker shows that people put a lot of trust in online reviews, from strangers or friends. That goes especially for places to stay and places to eat and drink, as it seems almost second nature today for people to read reviews on such establishments social media before deciding whether to pay them a visit.
