Tourism spend in the UK

Tourism spend in the UKThe Jubilee weekend has been seized as a fine opportunity to emphasise that the travel & tourism industry in the UK is nearly five times the size of automotive manufacturing and supports almost as many jobs as the financial sector.  This is according to new research from the WTTC (World Travel & Tourism Council) sponsored by American Express and published last week.

The study, undertaken by Oxford Economics, shows that the industry contribution to GDP in the UK was £101bn in 2011, or 6.7% of total GDP.  This compares with 2.3% for automotive manufacturing, 1.9% for mining and 4.1% for chemicals.  The 2.3m direct and indirect jobs supported is nearly as many as in the UK financial service sector in.

The new research also showed that it is growing faster than most other sectors in the UK.  It will expand by 4.1% over the next ten years, a faster growth rate than the total economy and all other industries presented in this study.

It also highlights that Travel & Tourism is a significant source of exports for revenue for the UK. In 2011, visitor exports totalled £25 billion which was 13.2% of all service exports and 5.1% of all exports including goods and services. www.wttc.org

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