Cost of Brexit on UK’s tourism industry revealed – with the worst yet to come

Sign up to Simon Calder’s free travel email for expert advice and money-saving discounts Get Simon Calder’s Travel email Get Simon Calder’s Travel email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. One of the Brexit decisions taken by Boris Johnson’s government was to ban more than 200 million European Union citizens from travel to the UK using their identity cards. “Tourism prices in the UK have risen sharply, and at a faster rate than overall inflation in the economy.” “If inbound tourism to the UK was to grow at the same pace as forecasts are currently indicating for Western Europe, the value of inbound spending would be worth an additional £4.4 billion per year by 2030 to the UK economy.” The report also says: “Business visits are lagging well behind though up on 2023; the UK has lost c1.5m business visits since pre-Covid.” The US remains the UK’s largest and most valuable visitor market: almost £1 in every £5 of inbound visitor spending in the UK is by US visitors. The tourism minister, Sir Chris Bryant, said: “We have an ambition to welcome 50 million international visitors a year to the UK by 2030, and this positive forecast shows that we are well on our way to achieving this, setting the scene for our visitor economy to maintain its competitive edge and thrive for years to come.” Patricia Yates, chief executive of VisitBritain, said: “Visitors have a lot of choice, and we face fierce competition especially from our European neighbours. “To drive tourism to Britain, supporting the UK government’s ambition to reach 50 million visitors annually by 2030, our international campaigns are focused on markets showing growth including Australia and the US, as well as our major European markets and the valuable Gulf Co-operation Council countries.”