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612 United Kingdom
and economic change, technological innovation
and the emergence of tourism enterprises.
The UK supply of tourism is based on the rich
variety of landscape, heritage and culture.
Valued landscapes are recognised as national
parks and heritage coasts, rivers and lakes form
the basis for tourism activities, the built heritage
represents some of the world's most important
historic buildings, and special events attract international
tourists. The varied accommodation base
is focused on the cities and coasts. There is an issue
of quality in terms of UK accommodation stock, an
issue that is exacerbated by the lack of compulsory
registration. Transport gateways such as Heathrow,
Gatwick and Dover are well known, but other
innovative and successful gateways are at Manchester,
Glasgow and London City airports. Other
ports include Poole and Portsmouth, and the
Channel Tunnel. Internal transport is dominantly
by road, although tourism transport also takes the
form of rail, cycle and the waterways.
Demand for domestic tourism has been in
decline since 1950, with a substantial reduction in
nights spent in the country. Short, additional
holidays form the growth sector for domestic
tourism, with a shift away from traditional
destinations �such as seaside resorts) towards rural
areas, cities and activity-based holidays. In contrast,
outbound international tourism has shown
substantial growth since 1945, fuelled by competitive
pricing of inclusive tours and the realisation
of strong consumer preference for holidays overseas
enabled by rises in discretionary income. A
structural shift in demand is seeing strong growth
for independent travel and for long-haul destinations,
although European destinations still
dominate. Inbound international tourism is
based on heritage, culture, countryside and
ethnic reasons. The pattern of visits is dependent
upon currency exchange rates, the health of the
economy, special events and promotional activities.
The origin of overseas tourists is diverse and
changing, but is dominated by North America and
Western Europe.
Whilst the public sector organisation of tourism
per se in the United Kingdom occurred late, related
legislation had been in place earlier �notably the
1949 National Parks and Access to the Countryside
Act, and the establishment of a tourist board in
Northern Ireland in 1948). Until 1969, tourism was
overseen by trade organisations with government
responsibility residing in the Department of Trade.
In 1969, the Development of Tourism Act created
the structure of country tourism boards �for
England, Scotland and Wales) and the British
Tourist Authority which was charged with the
overseas promotion of the country as a whole. The
Act also stimulated the creation of a regional
tourism board structure, resulting in regional
boards for England, Scotland and Wales. At local
level, substantial resources and efforts are devoted
to tourism by those authorities which benefit from
it. In the late 1990s this structure is still in place,
although the exposure of industry to political
scrutiny in both the mid-1980s and the 1990s has
shifted political responsibility for it initially into the
Department of Employment and then to the
Department of National Heritage.
There is no published policy for tourism in the
United Kingdom; rather, policy has to be inferred
from sporadic political action. Throughout most of
the twentieth century, the basis for government
involvement in it has been the attraction of foreign
currency and also regional development. In the
mid-1980s emphasis shifted towards tourism as an
employment generator, while in the 1990s the
Department of Natural Heritage began assembling
a national tourism policy. An important new
influence in the mid-1990s was the introduction
of the Heritage Lottery Fund to finance tourism
development �amongst other things). At regional
level, there are published strategies for each of the
regional boards, while local-level policy is shaped
by individual authorities and their industry.
Economically, tourism contributes through
spending, employment and regional development.
This industry accounts for 1.7 million jobs in the
United Kingdom �although the quality of these jobs
is often questioned) and makes a contribution to
the balance of payments. Tourism is used as an
economic development tool in Scotland, rural
areas and the inner cities in Wales, and it
contributes to the Exchequer through the air
passenger duty introduced in the mid-1990s. Its
environmental impact upon the country has
received considerable attention since the mid-
1980s with many official reports, good practice
guides and media attention. What has emerged is