Based on previous travel behaviour during times of uncertainty and weaker economic performance at home, Germans and Americans are less likely to travel to the UK, and Euromonitor expects that each country will see 0.5 million fewer people travel to the UK between 2015 and 2020 to reach 3.3 million and 3.5 million respectively.
With the UK having entered a period of uncertainty with many unknowns, Euromonitor International’s macro model shows a 2% fall in GDP growth over five years to 2020 stemming from a Brexit, with the biggest impact felt in 2017 and a return to the baseline forecast by 2023. Brexit uncertainty is expected to affect UK in the short to mid-term, and Euromonitor predicts 2.3 million less visitors during the 2015-2020 period.
Caroline Bremner, Head of Travel Research, commented: “Destination branding and consumer desire to travel would be hit hard by the uncertainty Brexit would entail in the short to mid-term. EU source markets, such as Ireland, Germany and Spain along with the US would experience the sharpest forecast change in volume. However, a pound slump after Brexit would help to entice visitors to the UK.”
Highlights
- The UK is high up on the scale of popular destinations, ranked sixth globally in 2015, with an impressive 35.4 million international trips, worth £28 billion to the UK economy
- The UK has a high dependency on Western and Eastern Europe for its international tourists, with both regions accounting for 73% of all inbound tourism in 2015
- France is the UK’s biggest and robust source market, with 3.7 million visitors to the UK in 2015, and has exhibited a high level of resilience to external factors in turbulent times.
- Based on previous travel behaviour during times of uncertainty and weaker economic performance at home, Germans and Americans are less likely to travel to the UK, and Euromonitor expects that each country will see 0.5 million fewer people travel to the UK between 2015 and 2020 to reach 3.3 million and 3.5 million respectively.
- In comparison to the global recession in 2008, it took eight years for UK outbound demand to recover to its original levels pre-crisis, only achieving levels of over 78 million outbound trips in 2015. In value sales terms, the outbound market collapsed and lost over £10 billion from its peak to trough in 2008 and bottomed out in 2013 when the outbound market started to pick up again thanks to pent-up demand and a stronger economy. The sharp fall was not just a result of demand collapsing, but also the removal of unprofitable low-costs deals and players, with major tour operators reducing supply to maximise average transaction prices.
Vicky is the co-founder of TravelDailyNews Media Network where she is the Editor-in Chief. She is also responsible for the daily operation and the financial policy. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Tourism Business Administration from the Technical University of Athens and a Master in Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Wales.
She has many years of both academic and industrial experience within the travel industry. She has written/edited numerous articles in various tourism magazines.
