Evaluating the Socio-Economic Impact of COVID-19 on UK Tourism

This essay explores the significant impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the UK tourism industry, which is a vital contributor to the UK's economy. The industry experienced a sharp decline in sales and profits due to travel restrictions and lockdowns imposed to control the spread of the virus. The essay highlights the loss of job opportunities, business bankruptcies, and the overall struggle of the UK to revive its tourism sector. Before the pandemic, tourism accounted for a substantial portion of the global GDP and supported millions of jobs in the UK. The UK government's efforts to support the industry through loans, grants, and a Tourism Recovery Plan are also discussed, emphasizing the importance of tourism as an economic, social, and cultural asset. The essay concludes that by adhering to safety guidelines, offering attractive travel incentives, and promoting awareness, the UK tourism industry can gradually recover from the pandemic's devastating effects and restore its contribution to the nation's economy.

Impact of Covid-19
pandemic on UK
tourism industry

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................2
TASK ..............................................................................................................................................2
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6
INTRODUCTION
Covid 19 is a contagious disease that was first discovered in 2019 in Wuhan, China and
took the world by spin in the recent years. It took the form of a global pandemic that badly
impacted the economic growth of nations worldwide. Tourism can be defined as the activity that
includes travel by people to different places so that they can explore nature or any historical or
unique site. Tourism is an essential and large industry with respect to providing income to the
government of UK(Baum and Hai, 2020). It thus act as a major source of income and revenue for
the government because it drives several job opportunities. It thus benefits the government as
well as the people of a local area. But this industry was severely impacted due to Covid 19
because of the reasons that people started staying at home instead of travelling. This essay will
cover in detail and discuss the issue of Covid 19 and its impact on the UK tourism industry.

TASK
The Covid19 pandemic began as a disease which was only prevalent in a region but with
time it spread to all the other parts of the world because of its nature being a contagious disease.
Covid led to dramatic loss of human life while also disrupting the economic and social field. All
the industrial sectors saw decrease in the sale of their products and services which led to them
suffering threat of getting closed down. Workers in the economy became vulnerable to loss. The
most impact of Covid was most on the tourism industry which saw a major decline in their sales
and profit generation due to imposition of restrictions (Bulin and Tenie, 2020). Tourism industry
faced threat when the restrictions were placed on travel and there was decrease in the demand
among travellers. Before this Pandemic, travel and tourism was one of the major sectors that led
the world economy towards growth accounting for 10% of global GDP. It created millions of job
opportunities and was looked as too big to fail for many economies of nations. It was also an
important industry for United Kingdom. Tourism industry is now struggling due to this global
crisis as it has made people scared to go out, travel and explore new things as tourists. People
have face deprivation of basic necessities due to loss of income and this has impacted the
purchasing power of people due to which they cannot afford travelling to new places. This has
led to the fall of tourism sector. UK is struggling to lure back visitors while also making sure that
the disease does not spread. The collapse in the international travel has created financial
fluctuations in the UK market's tourism economy. The no. of job opportunities went down when
tourism sector declined below the low level because it created employment for many seasonal,
part time and temporary workers. Covid took away the bread and butter of people in UK whose
only source of income was through tourists coming in the country to explore tourist places like
job of a guide, shops near famous tourist places, hotels and restaurants, local art creators and
performers, etc (Keogh-Brown and et. al., 2020) . A lot of businesses in the tourism sector also
went bankrupt due to imposition of nationwide lock-downs by many countries in the view of
pandemic. So that movement of people could be restricted to control the spread of disease. Thus,
UK tourism was badly affected with the rise of Covid.
The world's 10th biggest tourist destination of the world is United Kingdom. According to
the 2018 data there were over 37 million visitors to the country. The tourism sector of UK is very
vibrant and vital as it creates millions of job opportunities and increases income of the country,
develops infrastructure in the country, helps in cultural exchanges between individuals while also

supporting the businesses. Tourism industry works hand in hand with the other sectors of the
country like transportation, arts, museum, hospitality, retail, etc. In 2019, tourism generated over
£100 billion for UK's economy. The jobs created by tourism sector are significant in many other
areas like communication, health and educational sector of UK. The tourists travel to UK so that
they can experience the culture of the host destination and learn about its traditions. It is very
profitable for the restaurants at the tourist places, shopping centres and local stores(Raj and
Griffin, 2020) . Over 3.8 million jobs are created by the tourism sector only in United Kingdom.
UK relies heavily on tourism because it generates big percentage of revenue for the government
and because of this it also facilitates the development of infrastructure because of the demand of
tourists. It allows for the smooth inflow of tourists who get attracted because of the advanced
facilities. Thus, local people in the country get an opportunity to grow economically and
educationally. Exhibitions and events are organized for the tourists so that they get attracted and
in turn the government and the other organizing authorities gain profits from the registration
fees, gift sales, etc. Thus, tourism is very significant in bringing diversity and cultural enrichment
to UK. Tourism also creates opportunities for the local citizens. As it facilitates them to sell their
locally created traditional art and crafts to the tourists and earn in return. So tourism can be
regarded as the biggest growth driver for the country because it also enhances social progress
and monitoring. Tourism touches upon several industries directly and indirectly facilitates the
exchange of money which is very essential for the development of UK. So in a way, tourism
creates demand as a form of activity for the people who travel to different places and create
demand and it then fulfils those demands with the help of group of industries(Razak, 2020) .
UK's tourism industry suffered a lot due to the pandemic like the monthly air passenger
travels in the year 2020 saw a fall of 98%. sharpest decline was faced by the Accommodation
and travel agency businesses in their turnovers since the first lock-down that happened. In the
travel and industry, the age group that saw the largest fall in employment is 16 to 24 years of
age. Restrictions were placed on unnecessary travel by UK in march 2020 and later lockdown
was imposed. The travelling by passenger vehicles also declined by around 91% which includes
cars, motorcycle, coaches travellers. Due to the impact of pandemic these people felt the most
safe at home due to which the tourist travelling declined the most. During the initial start of
pandemic the hospitality business saw a sharp decline where tourists were discouraged on
travelling at staying at new hotels in the fear of contracting coronavirus infection. The lowest

face of the travel and tourism industry was in May 2020 when Covid was on its peak all over the
world and people were locked in their homes due to the restrictions on travelling. As this
industry saw a decline it also impacted the economy of UK due to its share in its national
income. The labour market employed at the travel and tourism business could not even afford
daily bread an butter due to being dependent on this industry totally. To work towards the
recovery of its tourism sector UK government made a commitment to bring a Tourism Recovery
plan in the year 2021. The government gave the tourism industry a position of economic, social
and cultural asset. It stated that tourism relies heavily on mass movement and mixing of people
so its recovery is a must. Around 25 billion has so far been provided to the sectors such as
Tourism, leisure and hospitality in the form of loans, grants, etc. As the economy is opening up
the government is ensuring the visitors feel welcomed again(Zhang and et. al., 2021).
CONCLUSION
It can be concluded from this essay that tourism sector is a major industry of economic
growth in United Kingdom. But due to the rise of Covid19 pandemic the industry saw a sharp
fall in all its sales and profits due to the restrictions placed majorly on the travelling of people.
But with time the economies all over the world are starting to recover through many ways from
this global crisis that has hit the world. It can recover in their travel and tourism industry
specially by following the social distancing norms while allowing visitors to a tourist destination.
They can also encourage the tourists to be aware themselves and follow the proper guidelines
prescribed by the government to ensure that they can travel safely. Thus, it can recover from the
pandemic by also attracting visitors through providing special offers on travelling.

REFERENCES
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the tourism industry. Global Economic Observer, 8(1), pp.41-46.
Keogh-Brown, M.R., and et. al., 2020. The impact of Covid-19, associated behaviours and
policies on the UK economy: A computable general equilibrium model. SSM-
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Raj, R. and Griffin, K.A., 2020. Reflecting on the impact of COVID-19 on religious tourism and
pilgrimage.(Special Issue: The impact of COVID-19 on religious tourism and
pilgrimage.). International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage, pp.1-8.
Razak, N.A., 2020. Health and Tourism: implications of COVID-19 pandemic to the Malaysian
Travel and Hospitality Industry. Int J Sup Chain Mgt, 9(4), pp.663-670.
Zhang, H., and et. al., 2021. Forecasting tourism recovery amid COVID-19. Annals of Tourism
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