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

This report examines the significant impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the UK tourism industry, highlighting the substantial losses in revenue, profit, capital, and employment. It discusses the challenges faced by the industry due to travel restrictions, lockdowns, and changing consumer behaviors. The report also explores the recovery strategies adopted by tourism businesses, such as offering flexible booking options and implementing enhanced safety measures. Furthermore, it outlines the support provided by the UK government through schemes like the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and business loans, aimed at helping small tourism businesses restart operations and recover revenues. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of continued safety measures, hygienic practices, and government support to facilitate the tourism industry's return to normalcy and long-term sustainability.

Impact of Covid19 on
UK Tourism industry

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
TASK ..............................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Tourism means spending the leisure time away from home such as travelling and touring
for visiting holiday destinations, Tourist visits etc. This is a part of Hospitality industry that
includes hotels and resorts, catering, restaurants, clubs etc. The services such as travel,
transportation, food and beverage, entertainment and accommodation services fall under the
tourism sector. The Tourism industry is one of the biggest contributor to the global economy that
contributes around 3.6% to the global GDP (Landvogt and Ćorluka, 2022). Because of its big
contribution to the economy, it ensures employment generation and provides benefits to various
countries by introducing foreign capital by the tourist visits. But due to the global Covid19
pandemic, this industry has been affected globally by the industrial loss of around US$4.5 trillion
because of reduced domestic and international visiting of tourists, according to the World Travel
and tourism Council (Holland, 2022). The following report will cover the issue of Covid19
pandemic and its impact on the Tourism industry of UK. Further, it will also cover how this
industry is striving to recover from the affect of this pandemic and recommendations regarding
the ways to come out of the crisis are also provided under this report.
TASK
Covid19 is a global health issue and a worldwide pandemic that arose from china and
spread all over the world. It has affected many industries and businesses globally in terms of
profits as well as employment. Economies of many countries had to suffer a lot due to this
epidemic. In the mid of 2021, Covid19 had infected more than 175 million people worldwide
and caused nearly 3.5 million deaths (Roubík and et. al., 2022). Its daily cases rose to approx 1
million per day. To ensure public safety and reduce the spread of covid19, government of all the
countries announced national lock downs many times due to which all the commercial
activities were stopped and affected worst (Cui, Hu and Yu, 2022). Government imposed
social distancing norms and other safety norms like wearing of masks and sanitisation at
workplaces and other public places such as airports, tourist destinations, hotels etc. to avoid any
infection from the disease. This made the businesses to invest more on public safety with
reduced commercial activities and less revenue generation (Rahman and et. al., 2022). Inter
state transfer or international visits of people were banned to avoid the spread of covid19. It has
been made mandatory for the individuals to hold and show the medical certificate ensuring the

covid19 negative report at public places. And the Tourism industry is one of the mostly
affected industry due to the corona outbreak. All the services of this industry including
travelling, accommodation, hotels, tourist destinations, hostels etc. were badly affected due to the
nationwide lockdown that reduces the tourist visits at holiday destinations and thereby the
attraction of foreign capital. Various domestic as well as international flights, specially the
flights from China and India were banned due to worst Covid19 situation there (Fyfe, 2022). It
affected the travel sectors' revenue due to reduced number of travellers. Tourism sector is the
third largest sector in export that contributes almost 7% of the global trade. It also supports
employment by creating job opportunities in travel agencies, hotels, at destinations etc. in
developed as well as developing economies (Gnezdova, Osipov and Hriptulov, 2022). But
covid19 has left a massive impact on the employment and livelihoods of the people. It has left
about 100 million jobs at risk according to United Nations World tourism Organization. To
adopt safety measures, many companies allotted separate accommodations to the individuals at
hotels due to which the companies had to face loss of revenues. Travel companies had
implemented travel restrictions such as travel bans, quarantines and licensing & visa controls
etc.
The UK Tourism industry is the highest contributing sector to the economy of UK that
contributes nearly 9% to the UK economy. But with the first quarter of 2020 when the
covid19 was at its peak, it faced restrictions on airline businesses and national lockdown so
as to take measures for public safety (Maginn and Anacker, 2022). It had left a major impact on
air passenger arrivals in UK in the first quarter of 2020 and even till April 2020. The UK
government had made it mandatory to spend 14 days isolation period for the tourists to avoid
any spread of the infection from Covid19. The travel and accommodation agencies in UK had to
face a large reduction in turnover due to the reduced number of passengers (Itanyi and Obuka,
2022). The travel business started to earn revenue in October 2020 due to the ease of restrictions
further but later, when covid19 cases arose, it had to face the losses due to lockdown again in
2021. There has been a major contraction in Travel and Tourism in the year 2021 with the
worst economic consequences. At the tourist destinations and hotels in UK, there is a huge
decline in the number of tourists as compared to the pre-pandemic level due to which labour
and capital were remained idle that generated unemployment in UK tourism sector. The
contact intensive service in the travel agencies were also affected badly due to the reduced

travel of the tourists (Holland, 2022). The hotel and restaurant services in tourism sector were
also affected due to the changed and hygienic food preferences of customers after the covid19
outbreak. Reduction in the cash reserves is a short term impact but covid19 may leave a major
long term impact on the traveller landscape. For example, TUI (one of the largest operating tour
operator in UK) had extended the suspension of its holidays and cruises due to the travel
restrictions. But now, it has waived the cancellation fees and offering bonus to the customers to
make them rebook their holiday cancellation. It is trying to conserve cash by making customers
to ask for credit notes instead of full refund. It is adopting such measures to recover the loss of
lost revenues keeping in view the demands of the customers (Blaique, Ismail and Aldabbas,
2022). Another example is Hilton Hotels, a travel and tourism business in UK that faced losses
due to Covid19 and is able to recover the losses by adopting suitable measures. Initially, due to
the travel restrictions, its per room occupancy started to decline but later, its travel bookings rose
after the initiation of vaccination procedure. To avoid any spread of the infection, it conducted
virtual meetings and conferences and launched a hygienic customer service program for other
networking events (Gözkonan, Yıldız and Bayram, 2022).
After the reduction in covid19 cases, lifting up of lockdown and ease of restrictions, the
situation still has not reached the revenue level of 2019 i.e. pre pandemic level. But, the
vaccination procedure has contributed a lot in getting the global Tourism recovered and by
reducing the restrictions to adopt the corrective measures (Hu, 2022). Travel and Tourism
companies and hotels & restaurants are recommended to adopt safety measures and conduct
their own vaccination camps to ensure safety of the travellers, tourists and customers
respectively, to attract the tourists from different countries by ensuring safe travel. As a measure
of help to the hospitality sector, the UK Government has launched a scheme called Corona virus
Job Retention Scheme to generate employment opportunities. Further, it has started to sanction
business loans to help them starting their trade activities again and recover the revenues. For the
small tourism businesses, government is providing grants, giving relaxations in tariffs such as
reduced VAT rates etc. (Roubík and et. al., 2022). Global gross revenues from Tourism are not
estimated to be recovered to 2019 level late till 2023. Earlier, the promotional activities for Tour
and Travels were banned to avoid public gatherings. But now the hospitality industry should
promote the public safety norms so as to attract tourists at its destinations and ensure hygienic
conditions at the resorts & restaurants and sanitisation of the equipments used by the

customers or tourists. It is very challenging for the small tourism companies to implement the
public safety norms in a long term. To ensure safety, many tourists do not like to visit at tourist
destinations in UK due to high death-rate there because of Covid19. Travel companies should
provide easiness to the tourist passengers in visa applications. The government of UK has
conducted an Overseas marketing campaign to advertise the tourist destinations of UK and
attract the tourists globally to promote it as a safe and hygienic place for Tour & Travel. To
promote tourism industry,it has also formed a Global Task Force report that mentions the
importance of tourism in UK (Boto-García and Mayor, 2022).
CONCLUSION
From the above discussion, it has been concluded that tourism is the most contributing
sector to the economy of UK and contributes to the global GDP as well. But due to the Covid19
restrictions, Tourism or hospitality industry has suffered a lot in terms of revenues, profit, capital
and employment. To recover the losses and start the business operations again, small tourism
businesses can take the help of government grants and get the advantage of the schemes
launched by the government to restart their trade operations. Hotels and restaurants should be
made more hygienic by adopting safety measures at customer dinings and gatherings of staff.
Tourists and customers must not be allowed to enter the destinations or resorts without masks
and covid19 negative medical report. Tour and Travel industry should strive to be back to the
normal position and recover the losses they suffered.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
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reduction and revenue growth simultaneously under the CNG2020 strategy? An empirical study
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Perspectives on Diversity and Equity in a Virtual World (pp. 33-44). IGI Global.
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