An Analysis of the Tourism Sector's Contribution to the UK Economy

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the UK's tourism sector and its significant contribution to the national economy. It begins by defining tourism and its global impact, emphasizing its role in GDP growth, job creation, and infrastructure development. The main body delves into the specifics of the UK tourism industry, highlighting its rapid growth since 2010 and its projected value. The report presents statistical data on employment rates, the number of tourism-related businesses, and the revenue generated. It discusses the impact of both domestic and international tourism, including spending patterns and visitor numbers. The report further examines the advantages of tourism, such as destination attractiveness, consumer spending, and job creation, while also acknowledging potential negative impacts like air pollution and the dominance of large corporations. It concludes by summarizing the economic benefits of tourism, including income generation, infrastructure development, and employment opportunities, while also addressing the challenges of meeting the demands of overseas visitors and the need for capital investment. The report underscores tourism's importance as a vital industry contributing to societal growth and the UK's brand value.

Discuss how Tourism sector
contributes towards the UK
economy

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Tourism is considered as one of the fastest growing sector in the entire world, that
directly contributes to increase global gross domestic product (GDP). With increasing demand of
tourism, job employment opportunities, development of infrastructure and others, also increases,
which leads to enhance living standard of societies (Kassotaki, 2019). The present essay is going
to discuss contribution of tourism in development of UK economy, by taking a number of
statistical facts and figures.
MAIN BODY
Spending holidays overseas or in domestic marketplace with family, is most trendy these
days. Today, people around the world like to visit different-different places like destinations,
heritages, monuments and more, mostly during summers and winters (Pulido-Fernández,
Cárdenas-García and Espinosa-Pulido, 2019). Therefore, money they spend for visiting a
particular country refers to the main income source of the tourism industry. Tourism can be
defined as an activity which mainly concerns on attracting the visitors towards famous
destination and heritages of a country. For this purpose, it monitors the social progress, that
brings tremendous growth in economic value for a nation. In another words, tourism also defines
as travelling of people from one place to another, with different-different purpose like visiting
the beautiful destinations, conducting business meeting and more (Lin, Yang and Li, 2019). So,
this would create foundation and builds the base for a country for bringing tourism in its place.
Tourism provides a number of benefits to a country in terms of economic development,
improvement of infrastructure of societies, building brand value and more. Apart from promoting
the destinations, providing employment opportunities consider as the most important
contribution of tourism, that enables the local residents to earn for their livelihood. Therefore,
every country today, concerning more on promoting tourism for increasing the footprint of
visitors over there (Teixeira and Ferreira, 2019). In context with UK, it has evaluated that this
nation takes tourism as a platform for growth and development of its marketplace.
In UK marketplace, Tourism from the year 2010, has been considered as the fastest
growing industry, which forecast that in 2025, it will worth more than £257 billion. The
expansion of tourism has created 9.6% jobs of total employment rate where in 2013, over 3.1
million job opportunities is provided by the organisations that deal in tourism business, which is
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about one-third of net employment (Scheyvens and Hughes, 2019). UK considers as the fifth
largest tourism industry in terms of organisations with more than 200,000 enterprises, where
over 70,000 are the major world-class hotels, including guest houses, holiday parks and more,
while 110,000 are the restaurants, bars and pubs that serve best services for promoting tourism.
Along with this, over 7,000 hospitality organisations includes the theme parks, gardens,
museums, historical and heritage sites, etc. All these organisations, give their equal contribution
in enhancing tourism and attracting more tourism. Impact of tourism can be measured in terms of
job employment where, total contribution of tourism economy in the year 2013 is equivalent to
over £161 billion i.e. near about 11.4 percent of expected GDP of UK (Scheyvens and Hughes,
2019). This would help in increasing more revenues that directly contributes to improve and
enhance of infrastructure for society development.
Generating the revenue by more than £106 billion per year, which provides a platform of
supporting organisations in tourism industry to work more for enhancing travelling experience of
visitors (Teixeira and Ferreira, 2019). Tourism sector of England is considered as vibrant and
vital, where each and every organisation like Trailfinders, TUI, Thomson Cook and others,
contribute equal efforts for promoting tourism. Through data of tourism volumes and spending in
2017, it has been analysed that more than £19 billion was spent by residents of England on
overnight trips and more than £50.9 billion on day trips of domestic tourism. Similarly, in
inbound tourism, spend rate by international visitors also increase continuously in UK
marketplace, which is estimated to increased by £57 billion till 2025 as compared with 2013
where it was £21 billion. It has been evaluated that last year i.e. 2018, near about 37.9 million
visitors have come from overseas in UK with spending volume of £22.9 billion (Pulido-
Fernández, Cárdenas-García and Espinosa-Pulido, 2019). However, this has been decreased by
4% as compared to year 2017, where l it is accounted for 2.8% of total global arrivals. But still
UK is counted as one of the most arrival of overseas visitors, that indicates the better opportunity
for economy development (Lin, Yang and Li, 2019). Major advantages of tourism can be
analysed by the destination attractiveness, overall macro-economic performance, consumer
spending and creation of more job opportunities (Kassotaki, 2019). Demand from visitors of
international market is also expected to grow by 6.1%, which forces organisations that deal in
tourism industry to provide better services to them. Tourism thus, consider as an important
activity that builds the base in terms of wide scaling the consumption to bring the far reaching
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benefits. Importance of this industry can also be determined through it’s positive impacts on
other industries (hotels, transportation and more), society etc. In this regard, tourism contributes
towards overall growth, progress as well as development of a country. As per law of demand,
tourism industry includes a number of organisations like travel agencies, hotels, transports and
more, that work in collaboration for enhancing travelling experience of tourists (Scheyvens and
Hughes, 2019). Therefore, tourism in this regard, defined as a consumption of such services by
visitors throughout their journey that enhance more revenues for a nation. While from supply
side of tourism, what travellers spend on consuming the facilities and other services during
journey, becomes the revenue for tourism industry. For this purpose, organisations like hotels,
transportations, travel agency focuses more on determining the demand of both national and
international visitors for visiting a place (Teixeira and Ferreira, 2019). Through this process,
travel agencies by collaborating with other organisations works on offering attracting tour
packages, to influence customers and increase their footprints in UK. The positive impact of
tourism apart from employment for any nation includes promotion of cultural awareness, which
helps in preserving the heritages and historical places in systematic manner, for attracting more
visitors. Similarly, in terms of economy, tourism benefits include generation of foreign
exchange; stimulation of trade, income as well as entrepreneurship (especially for small business
ventures); provision of regional development particularly in remote and isolated areas etc. On
contrast, in terms of negative impact, it has been analysed promoting tourism at global level
increase the air travel, which may contribute directly to air pollution (Pulido-Fernández,
Cárdenas-García and Espinosa-Pulido, 2019). When holidays are booked for destinations then it
may reduce profitability of local and small scale ventures, because people generally takes the
services of those travel agencies who are operated at worldwide level. This will also reduce
opportunity of employment for local residents due to less experience and skills. So, large
corporations of tourism industry for enhancing experience of overseas visitors will hire talented
workforce, which may create discrepancies in organisational culture as well (Kassotaki, 2019).
Increasing overseas visitors also increase necessity for importing goods and resources from
across the nation, to meet their demands. Along with this, higher number of visitors will also
require more accommodation facilities like safety and security of tourists, availability of hotels,
lodges and other houses as per demand of international tourists and more (Lin, Yang and Li,
2019).
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Thus, it has been determined that tourism is one of the vital industry whose importance
can be measured from the number of benefits and advantages, which this sector brings to a host
country. Moreover, real importance of this industry comes from its nature including the way it is
organised for leisure purpose. Tourism by bringing the numerous value and benefits in terms of
economy, contributes majorly towards societal growth and development of a nation. Along with
this, it also helps in building the brand value, identity and positive image of a country. Moreover,
Tourism industry also goes beyond the attractive destinations, for being a crucial economic
growth contributor.
CONCLUSION
It has been concluded from the overall report that economically, tourism brings the main
source of income for organisations which deal in this industry. Through this income,
corporations with cooperation of government, in building infrastructure such as road
development, railway and other network for transportation etc. Along with this, with growing
business of tourism, also provides numerous benefits to a country by providing job employment
to both skilled and semi-skilled local residents. But it arises a number of issues also where, a
country to meet demand of overseas visitors have to import resources from international areas.
This would require more capital investment for enhancing journey of visitors and attracting more
tourists as well.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Lin, V. S., Yang, Y. and Li, G., 2019. Where can tourism-led growth and economy-driven
tourism growth occur?. Journal of Travel Research. 58(5). pp.760-773.
Scheyvens, R. and Hughes, E., 2019. Can tourism help to “end poverty in all its forms
everywhere”? The challenge of tourism addressing SDG1. Journal of Sustainable
Tourism. 27(7). pp.1061-1079.
Teixeira, S.J. and Ferreira, J.J., 2019. Entrepreneurial artisan products as regional tourism
competitiveness. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research. 25(4).
pp.652-673.
Pulido-Fernández, J. I., Cárdenas-García, P. J. and Espinosa-Pulido, J. A., 2019. Does
environmental sustainability contribute to tourism growth? An analysis at the country
level. Journal of cleaner production. 213. pp.309-319.
Kassotaki, O., 2019. Greek tourism industry: Improving the tourist product. SAGE Publications:
SAGE Business Cases Originals.
Online
Britain's visitor economy facts. 2019. [Online] Available Through:<
https://www.visitbritain.org/visitor-economy-facts >.
Tourism: jobs and growth – The economic contribution of tourism economy in the UK. 2013.
[Online] Available Through:<https://www.visitbritain.org/sites/default/files/vb-
corporate/Documents-Library/documents/Tourism_Jobs_and_Growth_2013.pdf>.
The value of tourism in England. 2018. [Online] Available
Through:<https://www.visitbritain.org/value-tourism-england>.
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