TOURISM:THE TIMING of the riots that have convulsed England could hardly have been worse with hundreds of Olympic delegates arriving in London this week.
Rioting on the streets of London and elsewhere has projected an image of the country at odds with the pageantry and gaiety that surrounded the royal wedding in May.
London is expecting up to 400,000 visitors for the Olympics next August and 120,000 hotel rooms will be available to cope with demand. Britain attracts nearly 30 million overseas visitors a year and tourism accounts for 9 per cent of GDP, much higher than in Ireland.
Though tourism figures have stressed that it is too early to say what the long-term impact will be, the images projected abroad will be a “tremendous problem for tourism”, says Tom Rees, senior travel and tourism analyst at researcher Mintel.
Patricia Yates of Visit Britain (VB) said tourism businesses had seen “concern from some consumers” but not yet cancellations. “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,” she said.
But VB has cancelled an overseas marketing campaign to coincide with the roll-out of the BBC’s iPlayer service abroad, which includes Ireland. The campaign featured Jamie Oliver and Dame Judi Dench. A VB spokesman said it was not appropriate to screen it this week, but VB would continue with the campaign in the future.
London is by far the biggest draw for overseas visitors, accounting for half of all visitors to the country. Fortunately for visitors, the rioting occurred in the outer suburbs far from major attractions, such as Buckingham Palace, the House of Commons and the Tower of London.
The European Tour Operators Association (ETOA) issued a statement during the week noting that as long as the violence remained out of the city centre, tourism would continue as normal. ETOA executive director Tom Jenkins said he was confident that the violence would have no impact on visitor numbers for the Olympics.
Tourism interests in London are confident that the city will recover from the riots, pointing out that it faced much worse threats from the IRA and after the so-called 7/7 attacks.
