Evaluating the Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on UK Tourism

This essay examines the significant impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the UK tourism industry, highlighting the substantial decline in GDP contribution, job losses, and overall economic disruption. It discusses how travel restrictions and safety measures led to a sharp decrease in air passenger numbers and tourism expenditure, particularly affecting accommodation, food services, and related sectors. The analysis covers the negative consequences such as cultural differentiation, job losses, and a decline in tourist purchasing power, while also acknowledging potential positive impacts like the emergence of new domestic tourist destinations and increased awareness of safety and hygiene standards. The essay concludes that the pandemic has profoundly affected hotel occupancy, industry profits, and employment opportunities, ultimately hindering business growth and sustainability in the UK's travel and tourism sector. Desklib provides access to this and other solved assignments to help students in their academic journey.

ACADEMIC WRITING
FOR BUSINESS AND
MANAGEMENT
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY ..................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION ..............................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES ...............................................................................................................................7
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Topic- Evaluating the impact of COVID-19 on the UK tourism industry
INTRODUCTION
Travel and tourism industry have been offering various services which are significant
influenced by the global pandemic and this has been the major r4eason behind the travel industry
facing huge downfall. This essay will be discussing about the impact the global pandemic,
COVID-19 had in the tourism industry of UK. The essay will be outlining how the industry have
been undergoing through various changes that are influencing and shaping the industry into new
forces.
MAIN BODY
The travel and tourism industry creates a significant impact on the economy of UK.
According to Statista Research Department, in the year 2019, the travel and tourism industry of
UK contributed to the GDP of UK which was estimated to be 237 billion British Pounds (Statista
Research Department, 2021). The travel and tourism industry have been facing significant
downfall which has been the outcome of the glob al pandemic, COVID-19. Due to the health
crisis at global level, this has been responsible or making the travel and tourism industry facer
decline in the UK's job market.
The global pandemic has been responsible for shattering the economy of UK where around 7.6
million jobs have been influenced and around 24% of workforce have been facing risk due to
lockdown.
As the government have been focusing on reducing the transmission of the virus, the
authorities have been following various safety measures where lockdown was imposed in the UK
economy. The global pandemic have been influencing various factors and have been making the
economy of UK facing huge consequences. However, the global pandemic have been responsible
for influencing the job and employment rate of the economy. The pandemic have been also
influencing the other sectors as well where the accommodation, food services, manufacturing,
retail, transportation, construction and other services have been facing the consequences which is
adversely influencing the overall industry of UK (Chemli, Toanoglou and Valeri, 2022). The
travel and tourism industry have been also influenced by the pandemic which have been facing
downfall and making the industry face various sequences. As the number of suspected COVID-
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19 positive cases were rapidly increasing, this was one of the factor which influenced various
industries and sectors that have been facing the adverse outcomes and outbreaks of the company.
Due to the global pandemic, the number of air passengers were decreased from 6,804,900
to 112,300 which reflected a downfall of 98.3% and such factors have been influencing the
profitability of the industry (David Roberts, 2021). The accommodation and travel agency have
been facing the highest decline which fell by 9.3% in May 2020 and this has been the
consequence of global pandemic. The employment in accommodation for visitors have been
decreased by 21.5% which was the major consequence that have been faced due to the global
pandemic. The travel and tourism industry have been facing the financial risk as well which have
been imposed due to the lockdown restrictions that have been imposed by the authorities.
The emergence of SARS-COV-2 have been influencing the travel and tourism industry
where in the first quarter of 2020 the travel and tourism economy of UK faced to 2.4 million of
losses in jobs and employment opportunities. The global pandemic was responsible for enforcing
various travel restrictions which has been the reason for influencing the travel and tourism
industry. The travel and tourism industry of UK have been affected by Coronavirus which haven
been the major factor for influencing the business performance and labour market of the
economy of UK. The downfall in the economy of UK have been decreasing the domestic and
international travel market which is influencing the hospitality and leisure industry. As the
pandemic have been leading to decline in the travel and tourism activity in UK, this has been
responsible for negatively influencing the industry which leads to shortage of visitors and brining
drastic change to the existing activities that are followed by the travel company in UK.
According to the 2021 forecast, the tourism expenditure in England is expected to
decrease by 10 billion British pounds in the second half of 2021 (Statista Research Department,
2021). Therefore, the tourism industry of London have been facing the highest drop which is
reflecting the highest drop over the years.The pandemic have been driving changes to the
tourism industry and each sector, such as- hotels and restaurants, parks and camping activities,
employment opportunities and labour markets have been influencing the profitability and
sustainability of the travel and tourism industry which is also creating an impact on the economy
of UK. The global pandemic have been creating a significant impact and leading to substantial
decline in the travel and tourism industry in 2020. due to the risk which can be face by visitors
while travelling, the authorities have been brought change in the travel and tourism industry
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which also reflected the restriction that have been imposed. In the year 2019, the inbound
tourism have been estimated to be the value of £28bn of the UK economy which was compared
to the estimated value of £6bn in the year 2020 and reflected the downfall of 78% (Barnaby
Bourton, 2021). The major impact of pandemic in travel and tourism industry can be seen
through the loss of employment opportunities which has been encountered. On the other hand,
the profitability and profit margins of the companies operating in travel and tourism industry
have been another factors which is influenced by the restrictions which are imposed by the
government of UK. In simple terms, this can be stated that the global pandemic have been
influencing the employment rate, labour market, profitability and sustainability of the travel and
tourism industry of UK.
The global pandemic have been influencing the distribution, tourism packages, safety and
security and is also immobilizing the international tourist emotional stability. In the travel and
tourism industry, the number of people from the age between 16 to 24 faced the largest decline in
the employment opportunities in the third quarter from 2019 to 2020. The room occupancy
resulted in 20% in July 2020 which was decreased in comparison to the year 2019 which where
the rooms was occupied with the rate of 90%. The employment in accommodation for visitors
have been decreased by 21.5% in the three months to June in the year 2020 which can be
compared with the three months of 2019 (Yeh, 2021). The travel and tourism industry have been
contributing with 6.7% of gross value which has been added in UK in 2018 and this has been
heavily influenced in 2020 and 2021 where the restrictions were imposed that restricted the
unnecessary travel activities that can increase the transmission of virus. The domestic and
international air passenger traffic was also decreased and was less than 2% of its in February,
2020 levels in April 2020.
The tourist arrivals have seen decline in the tourist economy of UK and made the
economy face various crises and have been facing the hardest hits in the industry. This has been
also influencing the psychological behaviour of travellers and has been the major source of
influencing the rate of employment, government revenues and foreign exchange rate of the
economy. As the global pandemic have been responsible in making the travel and tourism
industry have positive as well as negative consequences. Some of the negative consequences
which have been faced due to the global pandemic are- cultural differentiation, loss of job
opportunities, negative balance of payments and decline in purchasing power of tourists. Such
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factors have been negatively influencing the travel and tourism industry of UK. On the other
hand, some of the positive impact of the pandemic on the travel and tourism industry can be
reflected due to emergence of new tourist destinations and increased the rate of tourist flow of
domestic destinations. This pandemic also increased the awareness of safety and hygiene
standards that must be maintained by the companies and tourists through which they can ensure
safe travel activities. This improved the standards in health and travel and also promoted the
benefits of organic products (Zhang and et.al, 2021). The travel and tourism companies that are
operating in UK will be facing more loss in comparison to other sectors and this has been the
major reason for negatively influencing the profit margin of the industry and companies
operating under this industry. Due to the limitations and restrictions that have been imposed
upon travel, hospitality and leisure industry, this has been responsible for influencing the value
of the travel and tourism industry which has been exponentially decreased.
CONCLUSION
From the above essay, it can be concluded that the travel and tourism industry of UK
have been rapidly growing which faced a severe downfall that has been the outcome of global
pandemic, COVID-19. The global pandemic have been creating a significant impact on the hotel
occupancy, industry profits and job opportunities in the industry. The pandemic have been
responsible for influencing the job opportunities in the travel industry and is also responsible for
affecting the business growth, profit margin and sustainability in the travel and tourism industry.
The travel and tourism industry of UK have seen a major downfall which is reducing the possible
employment opportunities, labour market and business growth.
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REFERENCES
Books and journals
Chemli, S., Toanoglou, M. and Valeri, M., 2022. The impact of Covid-19 media coverage on
tourist's awareness for future travelling. Current Issues in Tourism. 25(2). pp.179-186.
Yeh, S. S., 2021. Tourism recovery strategy against COVID-19 pandemic. Tourism Recreation
Research. 46(2). pp.188-194.
Zhang, H and et.al., 2021. Forecasting tourism recovery amid COVID-19. Annals of Tourism
Research. 87. p.103149.
Online
Statista Research Department, 2021. Travel and tourism in the United Kingdom [Online].
Available through <https://www.statista.com/topics/3269/travel-and-tourism-in-the-
united-kingdom-uk/>
David Roberts, 2021. Coronavirus and the impact on the UK travel and tourism industry
[Online]. Available through
<https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/tourismindustry/articles/
coronavirusandtheimpactontheuktravelandtourismindustry/2021-02-15>
Statista Research Department, 2021. Forecast impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic
on total tourism expenditure in England in 2nd half 2021 [Online]. Available through
<https://www.statista.com/statistics/1256657/forecast-covid-19-impact-on-tourism-
expenditure-by-region-england/>
Barnaby Bourton, 2021. The COVID-19 impact on the UK’s travel & tourism industry [Online].
Available through <https://www.workingabroad.com/blog/the-covid-19-impact-on-the-
uks-travel-tourism-industry/>
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