Brexit and its Impact on Tourism Sector

Running Head: Brexit and Its impact on Tourism Sector
Travel and Tourism (Ass. 3)
Research Proposal
System04104
3/22/2019

Brexit and its Impact on Tourism Sector
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1. Introduction
On June 23 2016, a decisive referendum for Europe was held for the exit of UK from the
European Union. The Britons voted for the exit of UK from the European Union and leading
a favourable result for Brexit. When the referendum was announced, the people and media
immediately reported and presumed various news related to positive and negative impacts of
Brexit on the political, social, and economic situation in all over the world including EU and
UK. The objective of this work is to analyse the impact of Brexit on tourism sector in the
United Kingdom (UK) and European Union (EU) states. To find out linguistic analysis, this
work is based on information and data retrieved from some journals, books, and online
resources dealing with Brexit and tourism. The first part of this report illustrates the
relationship between UK and EU, the historical background of Brexit, and about the possible
causes behind Brexit. This part includes a literature review that includes various works from
different people and authors on Brexit and its impact on tourism. After analysis of historical
background, the second part focuses on analysis on the impact of Brexit on the tourism
industry. The third part of this work shows the different methodological tools and techniques
used in this analysis. Finally, the last section brings a conclusive overview based on the
study.
Objective of the study
The objective of this work is to analyse the impact of Brexit on tourism.
2. Literature Review
2.1 Historical Background of Brexit
The term Brexit is derived from two words; Britain and Exit. Brexit refers to the movement
by which UK will have to leave the EU. In the words of the Oxford Dictionary, Brexit is a
process through which UK will have withdrawn its membership from the European Union
and this process is associated with some British political factors. On that time, the British
Prime Minister David Cameron announced in the pressure of his party and parliamentarians
that if he won the election, the referendum would be held to decide whether UK would
associate with EU or not in future. In June 2016, 72.2% of voters voted in favour of Brexit
and they want to leave EU (Gardner and Harrison, 2017). It was noticeable that 10 most

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beautiful cities including London, Manchester, and Birmingham voted against the Brexit,
while the rural areas voted in favour of Brexit even these rural areas are direct beneficiaries
of tourism (Bachmann and Sidaway, 2016).
On 29 March 2017, the UK government invoked article 50 of the treaty of EU, which provide
a mechanism for voluntary and unilateral withdrawal of a country from the EU. According to
this article, the UK should definitely leave the EU in March 2019, but the EU offered UK to
continue its membership until the end of 2020, even after Brexit.
2.2 The Impact of Brexit on Tourism
The present section of this study is intended to provide an overview about the impact of
Brexit on the tourism sector. This section also helps to understand the relationship between
the U.K. and EU and how leaving EU can be termed as the major risk for the tourism sector.
This section helps to understand the post and pre Brexit situation and its impact on EU
principles that provides every people have right to live, right to avail transport facilities, and
right to travel and work in every EU member states. Apart from this, there are several other
rights that the EU provides to its member country's people such as health cards, transport
facilities, freely move one state to another state etc.
There are various researches conducted on the possible consequences of Brexit on the
tourism sector. Among them, Goodwin and Heath (2016) said in their work that the European
countries share some common culture relations and creative industries. These countries form
a great collaboration through some policies and agreements that are based on EU funds.
Therefore, states which depend on EU funds may face problems. It is also unknown that the
remaining countries will maintain the current programs and policies of EU or deny it. The
relationship of EU members with UK is also unknown for many people (Belke and Gros,
2017).
According to Jensen and Snaith (2016), the approach of UK in Brexit negotiation is still
unclear and UK is looking for the favourable arrangement for some specific sector, such as
tourism industry. The tourism sector is more valuable in the British economy and it is
contributing so much in the economy of UK as well. Tourism sector also shapes the image
and reputation of UK in other countries. The impact of Brexit will also affect the external
relationship policies through which Britain connected with other EU members. Consequently,

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it can be said that UK set itself as a competitor for EU’s international cultural relations
(Bishop and Clegg, 2018).
2.2.1 Tourism before Brexit in EU and UK
There were more than 36.1 million visits recorded before Brexit where 73% of people visited
from Europe, 11% from North America and remaining 16% people belong to other countries
(Wadsworth, Dhingra, Ottaviano, and Van Reenen, 2016). Figure 2 shows that there was a
tremendous increase in foreign tourism between the years 1986 to 2015. Because of the
recession in 2008, the numbers of tourist were decreased, but the number of visitors gradually
increases every year until 2015. The main inbound market in the tourism sector in UK
belongs to various countries such as USA, France, Australia, Spain, Italy, China etc. (Fig. 2).
However, due to the Olympic Games, the number of people visited in EU and UK
outnumbered the rest.
Fig. 1 Visits to and from the UK
(Source: The international Passengers Survey, 2015)