ITC MANCHESTER ONLINE AUG:SEPT 2016
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8 NEWS // SPONSORED BY RUBRIC LOIS KING SOLICITORS<br />
UK TOURISM ALL THE RAGE!<br />
We might have had a slippery start to the summer<br />
with heavy rainfall putting a damper on the<br />
festival spirit, but it seems that nothing could stop<br />
us from enjoying the summer from our very own shores. Be<br />
it a seaside break in Brighton or an academic odyssey in<br />
Oxford, figures suggest that <strong>2016</strong> has seen a sharp increase<br />
in tourists both domestic and international visiting Britain to<br />
taste the very best we have to offer.<br />
Interestingly, though Brexit affected the pound by decreasing<br />
its value, making it more expensive for British tourists<br />
travelling abroad, the reverse is true for overseas visitors.<br />
This makes the declined value of the pound somewhat<br />
mitigated by massive spending surges from tourists visiting<br />
the country, boosting the UK economy.<br />
Somewhat unsurprisingly, London is the city which has<br />
enjoyed the most from the tourism boost. Visited by no less<br />
than 3.8 million visitors in the first few months of the year,<br />
London also received record numbers of tourists, attracted<br />
by the many tourist-friendly landmarks, museums and<br />
events.<br />
This upsurge of tourism isn’t isolated to <strong>2016</strong> alone. Last year<br />
set a record for UK inbound tourism, itself an increase on the<br />
previous year’s tourism with spending reaching a massive<br />
£22.1 billion.<br />
These factors all shape up to suggest that in <strong>2016</strong> Britain<br />
is most definitely the place to holiday. So, stop looking for<br />
cheap flights to Majorca and invest in a train ticket (or just<br />
hop in the car) and make your way to one of the fantastic<br />
tourist locations in the country.<br />
Figures from the national tourism agency VisitBritain suggest<br />
that we should anticipate a strong summer, whilst the Office<br />
of National Statistics showed record numbers of inbound<br />
tourists for the first quarter of this year. Tourists from across<br />
the globe flocked to the UK between January and March,<br />
with visits from the US in particular growing by nine percent<br />
to 542,000 visitors in that short period alone.<br />
Visitors from Europe also featured heavily, as did Australian<br />
tourists, with spending increasing to a whopping £173 million.<br />
This trend is set to increase for the remainder of the year,<br />
with the expectation being that by the end of the year the<br />
UK may see record levels of tourism overall.
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