Impact of COVID-19 on UK Tourism Industry

This report evaluates the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the UK tourism industry. It covers the decline in productivity and performance due to government regulations such as social distancing, lockdowns, and many others. It also discusses the positive and effective changes within the industry and the government schemes to help the travel and tourism industry in COVID pandemic.

Evaluate the impact
of the COVID 19
pandemic on the UK
tourism industry

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Essay on the impact of COVID pandemic on UK's tourism industry....................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6
Online-.............................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
COVID pandemic is ongoing global pandemic which was caused by severe acute
respiratory syndrome coronavirus (Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), 2022). Tourism industry is
one of the fastest growing industry in UK in terms of employment. It is estimated that Britain
will earn revenue of £257 billion by 2025 by their tourism industry (Britain's visitor economy
facts, 2022). On the other hand, COVID pandemic impacted the tourism industry of UK and
decline its productivity and performance due to government regulations such as social distancing,
lock downs and many others. The following report cover essay of the impact of COVID
pandemic on tourism industry of UK.
MAIN BODY
Essay on the impact of COVID pandemic on UK's tourism industry
COVID pandemic is one of the most hazardous pandemic which is faced by world
nowadays. It is a disease which is caused by coronavirus which further spread from person to
person. It was reported that 430, 205, 521 were overall case due to this pandemic and 5, 936, 876
were total death due to corona virus (COVID-19 CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC, 2022). This
pandemic started at the end of 2019 and this is the reason it named as COVID-19 Pandemic. Top
5 countries which get impacted worst by this pandemic are US, India, Brazil, France and UK.
Due to this pandemic government had regulated many restrictions for the population of their
country like social distancing, lock down, closure of markets and many others. Hence, the
economy of almost every nation in world get declined due to this pandemic. In context of UK,
their each and every sector get impacted negative by this pandemic (Ntounis and et. al., 2022).
Lots of jobs get vanished, unemployment rate increases, purchasing power of customers get
decline, UK did not continue to develop their infrastructure and there are many other
disadvantages faced by UK due to this pandemic.
In context of tourism industry of UK, then it get impacted worst by the pandemic. In the
year 2018, the travel and tourism industry in UK contributed 6.7% of all gross value. At the
starting of the year 2020, UK government decided restricted the social gathering of people so
that they will not spread the virus from one individual to other. It is seen that UK's monthly air
passenger arrival fell from 6,804,900 in February to 112,300 in April 2020 which means it shows
a fall of 98.3% (Coronavirus and the impact on the UK travel and tourism industry, 2021). It
1

was also analysed that only 20% hotel rooms were used by the guest in the year 2020 in England.
During the first nation lock down in February 2020, accommodation and travel agency
businesses has faced the fall of 9.3%. it is also found that the employment in travel and tourism
industry of UK get fall by 21.5% which means it further increase the unemployment rate of UK.
The fall of employment in this industry is largely seen in the age group of 16 to 24. The main
reason behind terminating this age group is that hotels and travel agencies want to retain their
highly skilled and experienced employees who worker for many years in their organisation and
hence, they have no other option to terminate their new employees to save their cost which they
spend in providing salaries to their employees (Khalid, Okafor and Burzynska, 2021).
The British government introduce a mandatory 14 day self-isolation for the tourist who
entered in UK on 8th June 2020. in the year 2019, it was estimated that UK will earn £28bn in
upcoming next year which is 2020 but due to lock down and restriction for tourists to entered the
nation, it is seen that the fall of 78% of revenue is recorded which is estimated in previous year
(The COVID-19 impact on the UK’s travel & tourism industry, 2021). In general, Due to this
pandemic the UK government has restricted the entry of other nation individuals within their
country so that they will not spread this disease any more. They have also restricted the travel
and tourism customers of their own country to use hotel and restaurant services because in case
they use their hotel and accommodation services then the government restriction on social
gathering will avoided by the citizen which is not tolerated. Hence, the business of travel and
tourism industry totally paused during this pandemic. Furthermore, most of the companies in this
industry get shut down and exit the industry because they are not even able to pay their fixed cost
(He and Harris, 2020). The companies which continue the business in their industry have
terminated few of their employees which are not mandatory for their organisation in this
pandemic which will further increase unemployment. Due to loss of jobs and declining in wage
rates, the purchasing power of customers get decline. Hence, they decided to purchase essential
products and services instead of travel and tourism services.
There are various government scheme in UK to help the travel and tourism industry in
COVID pandemic and few of the schemes are Recovery Loan Scheme, this scheme is for loans,
invoice finance, overdrafts of up to £10 million. This scheme will help the companies to meet the
cost of interest payments. Hence, the hotels and travel agencies who has taken banking loans can
repay earlier without interest rate. Kickstart Scheme, this scheme will provide funding to create
2

new 6 months job placements for young generation. This scheme is specifically for those young
employees whose employment is at risk due to COVID pandemic. This scheme allow 100% of
the relevant National Minimum Wage for 25 hours a week. It also provide insurance to their
employees. Hence, this scheme will help those employees (16- 24 year old) which are terminated
by the hotels and restaurants during the pandemic. There are various other benefits of many other
schemes to overcome the risk and loss of tourism industry from this pandemic.
It is also found that due to COVID pandemic, most of the infrastructure activities get
paused in UK. Hence, there is no development of buildings and hotels in UK for a particular
period of time which is another demotivating factor for tourism to avoid using travelling
facilities (Zhang and et. al., 2021). Secondly, when this pandemic is at hike situation than each
promotional media provide the news of COVID pandemic and its hazardous impacts upon health
which further shift the mentality of customers to focus more upon their safety and hygienic
factors. Hence, a safety concern in customers mind will avoid them travel and eat their meal at
restaurants because they prefer to eat at home. Travel and tourism industries are unable to
promote their business well and attract more customers as one of the toughest task for this
industry is to gain the trust of their customers that they will follow all government regulations
and keep focusing on hygienic factors (Gössling, Scott and Hall, 2020). Therefore a huge loss is
seen in UK's tourism industry due to COVID pandemic.
Not all factors impacted negative upon tourism industry due to COVID pandemic. There
are some positive and effective changes within the industry such as most of the companies
starting focusing to make strategical changes within their organisation. They are more focused to
their hygienic factors and hiring skilled and talented employees. The hotels and tourism agencies
analyse that it is essential for them to influence their customers effectively to use their facilities
and services in COVID pandemic. Hence, a talented workforce will help them to achieve their
target. Due to lock down in COVID pandemic, the tourism industry of UK focuses more upon
their domestic customers which means that they mainly aim to fulfil needs and wants of their
domestic customers. Due to this factor, the UK tourism industry get to know their domestic
demand and opportunities to grow. Hence, this will also help the UK population to develop their
life standards. Due to COVID pandemic, it is rep[orted that UK tourists are found to get more
attracted toward nature. Hence, it is a good opportunity for hotels and tourism agencies in UK to
gain attention of their customers toward their natural environment. Suddenly, hotels and
3

restaurants change their menu and focuses more to offer those eatable products to their customers
which are organic and good for health. For example, few of the restaurants offer healthy organic
drink to their customers as a starter which is good to improve immunity of customers and this
strategy will attract more customers because in COVID pandemic customers focuses more to
develop their immunity.
4

CONCLUSION
From the above information it is concluded that COVID pandemic is one of the most
hazardous ongoing pandemic of the world. This pandemic is founded at the end of 2019, hence
this is the reason it is named as COVID-19 Pandemic. Most of the businesses get impacted by
this pandemic and in context of UK, their tourism industry get impacted negative by this
pandemic. Due to government regulation like lock downs, social distancing, closure of markets
and many others, the companies in tourism industry are unable to gain appropriate number of
customers toward their company. Due to this pandemic a fall of 9% in tourism industry is shown
by government reports. A huge loss of employment is also seen from tourism industry during this
pandemic. Lot of tourism companies get shut down because they are unable to cover the fixed
cost. There are various government schemes which are used by the companies to cover their loss
due to this pandemic. These schemes will also help to increase employment rate of the UK.
5

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Gössling, S., Scott, D. and Hall, C.M., 2020. Pandemics, tourism and global change: a rapid
assessment of COVID-19. Journal of sustainable tourism, 29(1), pp.1-20.
He, H. and Harris, L., 2020. The impact of Covid-19 pandemic on corporate social responsibility
and marketing philosophy. Journal of business research, 116, pp.176-182.
Khalid, U., Okafor, L.E. and Burzynska, K., 2021. Does the size of the tourism sector influence
the economic policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic?. Current Issues in
Tourism, 24(19), pp.2801-2820.
Ntounis, N. and et. al., 2022. Tourism and Hospitality industry resilience during the Covid-19
pandemic: Evidence from England. Current Issues in Tourism, 25(1), pp.46-59.
Zhang, H. and et. al., 2021. Forecasting tourism recovery amid COVID-19. Annals of Tourism
Research, 87, p.103149.
Online-
Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), 2022. [Online] Available Through :
<https://www.who.int/health-topics/coronavirus#tab=tab_1/>
Britain's visitor economy facts, 2022. [Online] Available Through :
<https://www.visitbritain.org/visitor-economy-facts/>
COVID-19 CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC, 2022. [Online] Available Through :
<https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/>
Coronavirus and the impact on the UK travel and tourism industry, 2021. [Online] Available
Through :
<https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/tourismindustry/articles/
coronavirusandtheimpactontheuktravelandtourismindustry/2021-02-15/>
The COVID-19 impact on the UK’s travel & tourism industry, 2021. [Online] Available Through
:
<https://www.workingabroad.com/blog/the-covid-19-impact-on-the-uks-travel-tourism-
industry/>
6