Report on Tourism Sector's Contribution to the UK Economy (GDP)

This report explores the significant contributions of the tourism sector to the UK economy, highlighting its impact on GDP, employment, and overall economic growth. It discusses how tourism boosts revenue generation, infrastructure development, cultural exchange, and employment opportunities within the UK. The report references the pre-pandemic contribution of 237 billion British pounds in 2019, the challenges faced during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the subsequent recovery plans, including initiatives to promote safe and accessible tourism. Furthermore, the analysis covers the UK's strategies to become a leading European tourism destination by 2025, focusing on increasing international disabled visitors, delivering apprenticeships, and expanding accommodation options. The report concludes that the tourism sector is vital for the UK's economic prosperity, particularly in foreign exchange earnings, employment levels, and income generation, and anticipates continued growth through strategic planning and investment.

Skills For The Service
Sector

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................4
Discuss how the tourism sector contributes towards the UK economy.....................................4
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Service sector is also considered as a tertiary sector, which is the third tier in a three sector
economy. This service sector mainly focuses on the production of services maintenance, service
repairing, travel & tourism, hospitality, consulting, tanning etc. (Agarwal, Busby and Huang
eds., 2018). The United Kingdom, United States, Australia and China are among the countries
that largely focus on the service sector economy. In today's world the travel/tourism, hospitality
and technology specific advancement are the biggest contributors to the service sector industry.
This report will focus on the tourism/travel activities of the service sector that largely contributes
towards the economy of the UK. In this context, it will identify and discuss various economic
contributions that are made by the tourism sector within the UK. Along with this, it will identify
the economic contributions that are made by the tourism industry within the UK.
MAIN BODY
Discuss how the tourism sector contributes towards the UK economy
Tourism industry
Tourism is explained as the activity of travelling or shifting to different locations with the
aim of recreation, enjoyment, rehabilitation etc. In a more concrete sense, it is described as the
act of travelling to some other location, environment or state for the purpose of business, leisure,
recreation, sporting or pleasure, for a minimum of 24 hours, but not longer than 1 year
duration(Agarwal and et.al., 2018). Travel and tourism industry is one of the fastest growing
industries across the world. Many people across the globe prefer to spend their time at different
places by actively travelling or shifting to other places for short durations. This has provided a
great opportunity for the tourism and travel related businesses across the UK to fulfil the
demands of people and generate revenue for the country. The travel and tourism activities across
the globe has witnessed a certain boom due to the advancement of technology and increased
connectivity of the people (Brauer, Dymitrow and Tribe, 2019). People have access to almost
every place in the world due to the various means of transportation such as airlines, roadways,
water transport, railways, space craft etc. The tourism industry fulfils the requirements and
desires of the people for travelling and tourism activities across various places (Albrecht ed.,
2021). Travel and tourism activities have contributed largely to the UK's economy. In 2019, the
tourism sector will contribute 237 billion British pounds through travel and tourism activities.

This was adversely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic but this condition did not prevail for long
and industry has again mixed to track.
There are various attraction points in UK which basically include stone henge, Tower of
London, The Roman baths and Georgian city of bath, York Minster and historic Yorkshire,
Windsor Castle, Chester Zoo and lake district national park. From the perspective of measuring
the exact number of visitor attractions its very difficult to perform that activity. There are some
places, sites which are particularly for purpose of worship and also they have different primary
purpose but still visited by tourists as well(Albrecht ed., 2021). In the overall manner, if
estimates needs to be done then there are around five thousand to six thousand visitor attractions
in England. It has been observed that these points majorly attract tourists on a large scale and
people also come from different countries in order to visit this country on a larger scale.
Economic contribution basically referred to as the gross changes in the region's existing
economy which can be attributed to the given industry, policy or event. The most important
economic feature of activities which are related to the tourism sector is that they majorly
contribute to three high priority goals of developing countries. It basically include generation of
income, foreign exchange earnings and employment level as well. The United Kingdom is the
world's tenth biggest tourist destination with over 37 million visits in the year of 2018. The
tourism contributed around a total of £213 billion to the GDP in the year of 2017 and that is
expected to increase to £ 265 billion by the year of 2028. The tourism industry valued around
worth over £ 257billion by the year of 2025 which is just under ten percent of UK GDP and also
support almost around 3.8 million jobs which is around eleven percent of the total UK
number(Bergson-Shilcock., 2017). On the yearly basis, it has been observed that £100.8 billion
a year which employs over two million people and also supports thousands of businesses.
Tourism basically works in the hand to hand basis with a wide range of sectors across England
which includes farming, retail, transport, sports museum and the arts as well.
According to the statistical data it has been find out that travel and tourism has
significantly contributes towards the economy of UK country. According to the year of 2019, it
has been estimated that 237 Billion British Pounds was contributed by the travel and tourism to
the GDP of UK. But according to the pandemic situation, it has been observed that tourism
sector has to face various kinds of challenges and have to face downfall in the income of UK

tourism industry. In the mid of 2020 year, with the impact of corona virus situation, the
contribution of travel and tourism to the UK's job market has also experienced a sharp level of
decline as well(Brauer and et.al., 2019). As this industry has accounted for over four million jobs
in the year of 2019. and just under four million in the year of 2020. There are steep costs to the
industry of travel in the UK in the year of 2020 forecasts for travel in 2021 and beyond the
predict growth that could be impacted by certain measures as COVID-19 vaccines or the surge in
popularity of travellers taking domestic staycations in the UK rather than going abroad. As the
country has recovered themselves from the impact of pandemic and they have made the plan of
tourism in order to attract tourists on a larger scale.
UK country has made various plans and take initiative towards safe tourism in the
country of UK. For this purpose, the country has ensured that United Kingdom will become the
most accessible tourism destination in Europe by the year of 2025 and increasing the number of
international disabled visitors by the year of 33%. A commitment has also made from this
industry to deliver 30000 apprenticeship on the yearly basis in England by the year of 2025.
There is also lead towards the mentoring programme which aims to support ten thousand
employees so that they continue to remain into this industry for a longer period of time (Lloyd
and Payne., 2016). They have also planned for Europe's leading hub for the hotel investment for
the next decade with over 130 000 additional bedrooms which has been added to the
accommodation stock by the year of 2025 with seventy five percent of these outside of London.
So with this planning, it has been observed that UK country will definitely grow from
their previous situation so that they can perform into the out of box manner. In the overall
manner, the economic contribution of UK country into the industry of tourism has significantly
improve themselves into the field of foreign exchange, employment and income as
well(Orchiston and et.al., 2016). So in the upcoming period of time, tourism industry has
perform into ut of box manner and tourists also take interest in terms of exploring themselves
through visiting this UK country. As tourism sector is a very beneficial sector in terms of
providing growth to the country and there are various tourists who come from different countries
in order to explore new destination points of this particular country.

CONCLUSION
It has been concluded from the above report that the tourism sector contributes largely to the
economy of the UK. Moreover, it has been identified that tourism activities help to boost the
revenue generation, infrastructure development, cultural exchange, employment opportunities
etc. in the UK. Furthermore, it has been identified that the tourism industry affects the economy
of the UK as it contributes up to 5% of total GDP of the UK. Along with this it has been obtained
that tourism activities have significantly impacted the overall growth of economies across the
world and are among the fastest growing industries that provide opportunities for growing the
revenue of the economy. Finally, it has been understood that the tourism activities within a
country are largely affected by technological advancements that provide better opportunities for
its growth.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Agarwal and et.al., 2018. Special interest tourism: Concepts, contexts and cases. CABI.
Albrecht, J.N. ed., 2021. Managing Visitor Experiences in Nature-based Tourism. CABI.
Bergson-Shilcock, A., 2017. Foundational skills in the service sector: Understanding and
addressing the impact of limited math, reading, and technology proficiency on workers and
employers. Washington, DC: National Skills Coalition.
Brauer and et.al., 2019. The impact of tourism research. Annals of Tourism Research, 77, pp.64-
78.
Lloyd, C. and Payne, J., 2016. Skills in the age of over-qualification: Comparing service sector
work in Europe. Oxford University Press.
Orchiston and et.al., 2016. Organizational resilience in the tourism sector. Annals of Tourism
Research, 56, pp.145-148.
Shahzad and et.al., 2017. Tourism-led growth hypothesis in the top ten tourist destinations: New
evidence using the quantile-on-quantile approach. Tourism Management, 60, pp.223-
232.
Tabash, M. I., 2017. The role of tourism sector in economic growth: An empirical evidence from
Palestine. International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, 7(2), pp.103-108.