The tourism slump to the UK triggered by Brexit is continuing. The annual VisitBritain forecast for inbound tourism shows spending is sharply down compared with 2019. This was the last year before the Covid pandemic – and also before the UK left the European Union.
The inbound tourism organisation predicts a record 43.4 million visits in 2025, with spend of £33.7 billion. That will be 19 per cent above the amount that foreign tourists spent in the last pre-Covid, pre-Brexit year, 2019 – but, allowing for inflation, around 9 per cent down.
One of the Brexit decisions taken by Boris Johnson’s government was to ban more than 200 million European Union citizens from travel to the UK using their identity cards. European travellers can visit dozens of nations, inside and outside the EU, without passports – but not Britain.
Joss Croft, chief executive of UKInbound, said the move has had “a catastrophic impact on the international student travel industry”.
Worse is to come, according to the latest VisitBritain prediction. From April, the UK will insist that all foreign visitors except Irish citizens must obtain an Electronic Travel Authorisation in advance. The £10 fee is to rise to £16.
VisitBritain predicted the demand is “assumed to have a small negative impact for Europe” but that this “could be greater in markets where, on average, perceptions of welcome are lower”.
The organisation is also concerned that Britain is slipping down the international tourism table.
“Forecasts suggest that looking forward the UK is likely to lose competitive share both within Europe and globally,” VisitBritain said.
“Tourism prices in the UK have risen sharply, and at a faster rate than overall inflation in the economy.”
“If inbound tourism to the UK was to grow at the same pace as forecasts are currently indicating for Western Europe, the value of inbound spending would be worth an additional £4.4 billion per year by 2030 to the UK economy.”
The report also says: “Business visits are lagging well behind (both short and long haul) though up on 2023; the UK has lost c1.5m business visits since pre-Covid.”
The US remains the UK’s largest and most valuable visitor market: almost £1 in every £5 of inbound visitor spending in the UK is by US visitors.
The tourism minister, Sir Chris Bryant, said: “We have an ambition to welcome 50 million international visitors a year to the UK by 2030, and this positive forecast shows that we are well on our way to achieving this, setting the scene for our visitor economy to maintain its competitive edge and thrive for years to come.”
Patricia Yates, chief executive of VisitBritain, said: “Visitors have a lot of choice, and we face fierce competition especially from our European neighbours.
“To drive tourism to Britain, supporting the UK government’s ambition to reach 50 million visitors annually by 2030, our international campaigns are focused on markets showing growth including Australia and the US, as well as our major European markets and the valuable Gulf Co-operation Council countries.”