Visit England is encouraging more British holidaymakers to take their breaks at home after revealing that coastal tourism in the country has fallen by ten percent over the past year.
The director of Visit England has revealed that coastal tourism across the country has experienced a ten percent decline year on year, prompting a renewed campaign to encourage British holidaymakers to stay within the country.
This could have a profound effect on resorts like Whitby, Scarborough, Filey, Bridlington and others along the Yorkshire Coast.
Visit England is increasingly eager to persuade more Britons to choose to take their holidays at home this year. The organisation is placing a particular and urgent focus on revitalising coastal resorts, which have notably struggled in recent times when compared to their urban counterparts.
The domestic tourism sector remains an absolute cornerstone of the national economy. It is a vast industry that supports many hundreds of thousands of small and medium-sized enterprises across the country. Furthermore, it is responsible for employing approximately 2.2 million people and generates a staggering £127 billion in spending. Despite these incredibly impressive economic figures, industry leaders strongly believe there is significant room for improvement, particularly regarding the current balance of international and domestic travel spending.
Currently, the balance of payments in the tourism sector is heavily skewed. British tourists spend significantly more money travelling overseas than international visitors spend while visiting England. Visit England estimates that convincing just ten percent of Britons who typically holiday abroad to instead take a short break in England would have a massive economic impact. Such a shift in holiday habits would inject an additional £8 billion into the gross domestic product.
To actively address the recent slump in seaside visits, Visit England is currently collaborating directly with the government on a new pilot programme. This initiative is designed to clearly demonstrate that actively promoting domestic and coastal tourism can deliver substantial benefits, reminding holidaymakers of the fantastic attractions found along the coastline that they may have recently forgotten.
Andrew Stokes, the director of Visit England, highlighted the sheer scale of the tourism industry and detailed the recent disparity between urban and coastal holiday destinations:
"Tourism is an incredibly important industry. It's a big industry and it impacts on lots of people. In total, there are many hundreds of thousands of SME [small/medium] businesses that make up our industry. We employ some 2.2 million people and the spend of our industry is about 127 billion pounds. So not talking a small industry. I believe we could, however, do better. Our domestic industry has had a mixed year. So whilst we've seen some very positive figures for the urban domestic tourism offering, we have seen coastal tourism has performed not as well this year, so 10 percent down year on year."
He further explained the economic imbalance caused by overseas travel and the ongoing strategic efforts to remind the British public of the country's coastal offerings:
"That balance of payments is not good at the moment. At the moment we spend far more money travelling internationally than international people do spend travelling to England. If we could convince just 10 percent of Brits who holiday abroad to to take a short break in England instead, that would give us an extra 8 billion pounds worth of gross domestic product. And I think people have probably forgotten a little bit the the coastal offering. And one of the things that we've been doing is we've been working on a pilot with government to show that promoting coastal tourism, domestic tourism, will actually bring about benefits."
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