The Tourism Industry Emergency Response (TIER) group has released the final stage of its research into the impact of the 7 and 21 July incidents…
The Tourism Industry Emergency Response (TIER) group has released the final stage of its research into the impact of the 7 and 21 July incidents in the capital on London and the UK`s visitor economies. The research was carried out for TIER by Oxford Economic Forecasting.
“Many of London`s businesses, especially retailers and attractions have been hit hard over the summer. But the record start to the first half of the year (with overall spending up by 13% compared to 2004 and visits increased by 12% – to 11.3 million) will mean that inbound tourism should still finish the year ahead of 2004.
The research shows that in August, the capital`s tourism industry was beginning to show early and tentative signs of recovery and in the first weekend of September hundreds of thousands of people were out at The Regent Street Festival and Tour of Britain cycle race, part of Visit London`s `London in September` marketing campaign.”
The research shows that spending by international visitors in 2005 is predicted to be £750 million less than previously forecast. £500m of this loss will be felt in London. This compares with an earlier estimate of losses of £300m (UK) / £150m (London) made after 7 July but before the incident on 21 July.
According to Visit London`s Visitor Attraction Monitor, visits to London museums during July declined on average by 17.8%. Early indications for August suggest that overall visits have fallen by 20-25%.
These estimated losses are supported by recent UKinbound figures showing a fall of 7.4% for businesses in its membership in July 2005 compared with the previous year and forward bookings down 9.3%.
Marketing response
Focus group research conducted by Visit London with the support of VisitBritain (which indicates that visitors retain very positive attitudes towards London and the British people, but have different attitudes towards visiting the city at the present time) has informed a number of collaborative marketing initiatives in the UK and overseas:
Visit London
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