Evaluating the COVID-19 Pandemic's Impact on the UK Tourism Industry

This essay examines the profound impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the UK tourism industry. It begins by outlining the background of the COVID-19 pandemic, tracing its origins and global spread, and then focuses on its specific effects on the tourism sector. The essay highlights the critical importance of tourism to the UK economy, emphasizing its role in employment, GDP contribution, and cultural promotion. It details how the pandemic led to a significant decline in tourist arrivals, affecting various segments of the industry, including hotels, transportation, and cultural activities. The essay also offers recommendations for overcoming the crisis, such as implementing stringent safety measures and adopting affordable pricing strategies to encourage tourism recovery. Ultimately, the essay underscores the need for strategic interventions to revitalize the UK tourism industry in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, with a focus on sustainable and resilient growth.

IMPACT OF COVID-19
PANDEMIC ON UK
TOURISM INDUSTRY

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Background of Covid-19 pandemic and global crisis on tourism sector-....................................3
Importance of Tourism in UK-....................................................................................................4
Tourism sector affected by pandemic in UK-..............................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Coronavirus disease is infectious disease which was caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. It has
affected different people in different manner. Many of the people suffered with severe conditions
and some recovered without getting hospitalized. Tourism industry was impacted in UK as well
as it affected globally. Tourism industry consists of companies or organization which provides
services to the tourists. It is also known as travel industry, in this people visit different places.
Nowadays, people are spending much in tourism as people like to enjoy and have fun. This
sector has become the income source for people in many regions. Tourism industry is closely
connected with the hotel industry, transport industry. This essay will discuss how covid-19
pandemic affected the tourism industry especially in UK as well importance of tourism sector in
UK. Along with this, it will also discuss how UK tourism industry responded to this pandemic
crisis.
MAIN BODY
Background of Covid-19 pandemic and global crisis on tourism sector-
Covid-19 is the disease which was caused by SARS-CoV-2 virus. It was first identified in
December 2019 at Wuhan, China. It was very dangerous diseases which quickly spread all
around the world. This virus mostly causes the respiratory symptoms in the human body. They
can be like feeling cold, a flu or pneumonia. Other than the respiratory systems it can also affect
the other parts in the body. Some people were suffered with mild symptoms and some suffered
with severe conditions. This diseases mainly attack the hearts in the human body. The older age
people who were already suffering from some medical illness were at more risk in Covid-19.
Thousands of people were died due to Covid-19 in UK as well as the whole world. In
March 2020. WHO declared Covid-19 as the global pandemic. A limited number of in vitro and
clinical studies reported that some medicines like chloroquine, hydroxychloroquine, remdesivir
and azithromycin have the ability to reduce the life span of the infected person as well as can
reduce the symptoms of Covid-19 infection. The Covid-19 has caused disruptions in the global
economy (Abodunrin, Oloye and Adesola 2020).

Tourism sector is one of the most the fastest growing sector in all around the world. In
the end of the first quarter of the 2020, this pandemic had become the barrier of the international
tourism and it significantly affected the tourism sector. For many of the countries or regions
tourism sector is the main source of the income, employment, foreign exchange earnings as well
as the government revenue. Most of the jobs in this sector is usually taken by women that is 54%
of the population as compared to other sectors(Flynn, et.al. 2020).
Covid-19 is the economic crisis on global scale. International tourism was the most
affected sector of the pandemic. According to The United Nations Tourism Organization
(UNWTO) there is an estimated loss of 850 million to 1.1 billion international tourist arrivals.
The monthly air passengers' arrival in UK fell from 6,804,900 in February 2020 to 112,300 in
April 2020 that is a fall of 98.3% in tourism sector of UK. The overall tourism industry in UK
saw the largest employment fall of 16 to 24 years age group between Quarter 3 2019 and Quarter
3 2020.
Importance of Tourism in UK-
United Kingdom is very famous for its cultural heritage. It offers landscapes with natural
beauty as well as the urban attractions. UK offers memories and experiences for both local
people and the visitors from different countries. Tourism is the most important industry for UK,
it is largely responsible for employment throughout UK which is around 6 million jobs. In 2018,
there were 38 million international visitors in UK and it is expected that this will grow more by
quarter 2025. Due to coronavirus, the contribution of tourism to the UK's employment got
decline as this industry has given above 4 million jobs in 2019 as compared to 2020 which was
under 4 million. UK comes under the most visited countries in the world. Tourism sector is very
important for UK as it provides most of the employment to the people. This helps in the growth
of economy of the country as total 9% of UK's GDP is generated by tourism industry. UK's
tourism industry consists of various kinds of organizations like service of accommodation for
visitors, conferences and exhibitions, food serving activities, transportation for passenger, travel
agencies, cultural activities. Tourism statistics of UK proves that tourism sector is one of the
most important and valuable industry as compared to other sectors.
About 39.2 million people have visited UK in 2017 which is around 66% of UK population.
Although UK is a small country then also it attracts 3.8% of global tourism receipts.
There are total 241,000 businesses in travel and tourism industry. Over 3.3 million people work

in tourism businesses and 1.5 million get employed in this sector. London receives half of other
countries visitors in the UK. Scotland attracted 3.5 million and Wales 941,000 visits. The
Department for digital, culture, media and sport (DCMS) is the sponsor of tourism in United
Kingdom. UK's tourism satellite Account produces by ONS every year. It calculates the figures
by applying tourism ratios. Tourism is important as well as the major sector in UK because it
delivers sustainable growth(Romagosa, 2020) and new employment ion the country. Tourism
encourages for protecting and maintenance of the heritage places. Like national parks, historic
buildings and urban landscapes. Tourism helps to understand the culture of the place.
Tourism sector affected by pandemic in UK-
Covid-19 has been very bad especially for UK's tourism industry. Covid-19 pandemic has the
devastating effects on the countries who are mostly dependent on the tourism. Turnover of
tourism industry fell to 26.0% level in 2020 in May. Due to the pandemic, UK has seen the large
fall in the number of visitors both from overseas and the domestic market. The coronavirus has
heavily affected the tourism industry in 2020 and 2021 impacting livelihoods, public services
The day when first travelling was discouraged on 16 march before the lock-down(Banks and Xu
2020) for announced in the country. In the past years, UK tourism, industry has been the fastest
growth in the economy (Roy, 2020). The pandemic has faced the shortage of visitors which
brought the tourism industry to thrive. In some areas of UK, tourism has been largely affected by
Covid-19 job crisis. This industry has affected because of the restrictions in travelling to
different places as tourism and travel industry are interconnected with each other. Many steps
were taken, but they were not successful as now people are more conscious about their health
and safety.
Recommendation of ways to overcome the crisis in tourism industry-
1. Safety Measures- It is very important to take safety measures to recover the pandemic
crisis and bringing back the situation in control. The overall industry should focus on the
health and safety measures for the visitors(Freedman, 2020). Safety measures can be like
proper social distancing should be maintained, ventilation of indoor spaces, hand
washing, applying proper sanitizer on hands, use of masks fir covering the mouth,
keeping the unwashed hands away from the faces. Maintaining proper guidelines of the
government to keep safe environment. Along with this, people should avoid gatherings,

not using the masks which has vales. They should ensure about providing hygienic and
fresh food to the tourists, special care should be taken of the tourist.
2. Affordable price- Due to the pandemic, the income level of the people has affected
much so by seeing this crisis tourism industry should go for affordable prices. Because of
the low income level people are not spending much in these sectors. This will help the
people to involve in travelling. The packages of tourists should be set properly so that
they don't have any problem going to new place after this pandemic(Yeh, 2021). Instead
Of thinking about making more profits, much focus should be given on stabilizing the
tourism industry. Profit can be only made when the prices are set high. Many institutes
have stated that tourism industry will take much time to come back at its original level.
CONCLUSION
The above essay has discussed how coronavirus has identifies in the world, its impact on the
human body that is how it enters and attacks the parts in the human body. Mostly, it has
discussed the situation in UK in tourism industry due to Covid-19 pandemic. Further, includes
the statistics of the UK's of tourism sector of the country. As UK comes under the top country of
having large tourists so it has much importance of tourism sector in UK so it has discussed this
as well. It enables to understand how UK's tourism sector got affected by Covid-19 pandemic
and recommendations to recover the crisis of Covid-19 in tourism sector.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Abodunrin, O., Oloye, G. and Adesola, B., 2020. Coronavirus pandemic and its implication on
global economy. International journal of arts, languages and business studies. 4.
Banks, J. and Xu, X., 2020. The mental health effects of the first two months of lockdown
during the COVID‐19 pandemic in the UK. Fiscal Studies. 41(3). pp.685-708.
Flynn, et.al. 2020. COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom. Health Policy and Technology.
9(4). pp.673-691.
Freedman, L., 2020. Strategy for a Pandemic: The UK and COVID-19. Survival.62(3). pp.25-76.
Romagosa, F., 2020. The COVID-19 crisis: Opportunities for sustainable and proximity tourism.
Tourism Geographies. 22(3). pp.690-694.
Roy, S., 2020. Economic impact of COVID-19 pandemic. A preprint. pp.1-29.
Yeh, S.S., 2021. Tourism recovery strategy against COVID-19 pandemic. Tourism Recreation
Research. 46(2). pp.188-194.
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