Tourism and Economy of UK - Essay Example

1 HOW HAS THE BRITISH ECONOMY EFFECTED TOURISM IN SPAIN AND THE UK Introduction Tourism has been universally acknowledged as a valuable factor in the development of a robust economy and as an effective impetus to a nation's prosperity. Indeed the tourism industry has gained world-wide prominence, significance and importance to most countries in the world. It has even been proved that a nation blessed with enchanting sceneries and climate and nothing else may resurrect itself from the economic dumps to the pinnacle of prosperity. So many countries depend on the tourism industry for its economic upliftment and economic miracles had been truly achieved by a mere taking advantage of whatever beauty and charm of its tourism sites that God has endowed the nation with. A case in point are the 32 Caribbean islands, most of which are bereft of natural resources and most of them were wallowing in abject poverty until they discovered that the world's rich and famous and the employees of the world's industrialised nations seek out exotic havens to regenerate themselves and recharge their energies from the pressures of work and that they want the sight of pristine, white beaches, tourquoise waters, tropical sceneries in a near perfect climate. And the injection of investments for tourism infrastructures and promotions paid off. Tourism, they found out, has the advantage of "a high income elasticity of demand" and seems to be "less amenable to the operation of restrictions by individual countries" (Bryden 1973 ,p.4). 2 Another boon that tourism brings is that it provides employment to millions of citizens in the world. It has been reported that tourism has already employed 192.2 million people worldwide and by 2010, it is expected to generate more jobs and employ 256.1 million people all over the world, "accounting for one in 11 jobs in the formal economy" (Lucas 2004 ,p.27). Factors Affecting the Tourism Industry By now, the benefits that tourism brings to any country are plainly incontrovertible. But tourism has its own downsides or drawbacks. It is a volatile and mercurial national undertaking. It is subject to so many factors and influences that may slow down its growth or even send it to the doldrums. Effects of global warming, such as floods, frequent typhoons, hailstorms, tsunamis and other calamities discourage vacationers and affect the tourism industry. So do absence of peace and order, civil wars, religious fanaticism, epidemic outbreaks, "political instability, currency fluctuations, changes in fashion and changes in the economy" (Nagle 1999,p.5). Speaking of the economy, economic factors can drastically reverse the growth of the tourism industry or advance it further. Financial crisis or the slowing down of the economy or recession definitely gives the tourism industry a big blow that may decelerate it. However, currency devaluation, which increases the spending power of tourists has an opposite effect. In the late 1990's when Asian currencies, such as the Thai baht and the Philippine peso were devalued, streams of tourists from Europe and North America took advantage of the weakened currencies and enlivened the tourism industry in those parts of the world. But a strong exchange rate will always dissuade tourists from coming. Instead, they will tend to flock to weakened economies where they will get more value for their money (Nagle 1999,p.6) 3 Bad governance especially governance of the economy in any nation always contributes to tourism decline. Mishandling of the economy that always entails graft and corruption gives bad image to the country and travelers shun countries marred by claims of misgovernance and corruption. In tourism promotion, good image counts a lot. Besides misgovernance spawns a destitute citizenry who finds it difficult to travel domestically and domestic tourism provides a sizable chunk of the tourism earnings of any nation. Enacted legislations inimical to tourism also affects its tourism industry as well as the budgeting of a measly outlay for tourism infrastructures. A hostile foreign relations policy may scuttle the tourism vessel of the nation and cause it to sink to oblivion. An example for this was the near-destruction of Cuba's tourism industry when USA imposed an economic embargo against Cuba in the 60's and 70's (Jafari 2000,p.122). Tourism in Spain and the UK Connection For students of tourism and for developing and underdeveloped nations who have just started to exploit their beautiful sceneries and have entered pell-mell into this industry called tourism, Spain is the rich model to be studied and patterned after because of its success in this undertaking despite that in the 50's the economy was in a dismal slump after General Franco led Spain using the ideologies of Mussolini under the throttling milieu of an autocratic government. This despite the fact that UK, Germany and practically the whole of Western Europe experienced rapid economic growth ( Lieberman 1997,p.1). Today, Spain ranks second after France in terms 4 of number of tourists visiting it and second after the United States in terms of value of tourism sales (Travel and Tourism in Spain). Since 2001, Spain took its place as the second leading travel destination in the world and had been hounding France for the top position since then although in 2007, China managed to edge it. Spain has always enjoyed intrinsic advantages i.e. "its proximity to origin markets, the great appeal of its resources (climate and beaches),its exoticism and its low price level" (Apostolopoulos 2001et al ,p.18). Thus, despite the isolationist policies of General Franco, more than one million visitors from countries experiencing resurgence of economic growth like UK sojourned in Spain in the 1950's . This jolted Spain of the reality of the importance of foreign currencies derived from tourism and this also started the symbiotic relationship between UK and Spain. While temperatures during wintertime in UK dip to almost 0degC, that in Mediterranean Spain record a benign 10-20degC. Even summertime in UK is still relatively cold at a maximum of 20degC while that in Mediterranean Spain, the thermometer reaches a pleasant 30degC (Lye 1996,pp.288,324). We also have to consider that at that time, the fast flying airplanes or SSTs were not yet in vogue and thus UK tourists refused to consider far-flung destinations which will rob them of their limited vacation time. Madrid is only 785 miles away from London and is a mere 1 hour and 34 minutes via a commercial airliner flying at a speed of 500mph (2009 ConvertUnits.com). As Spain developed its industry to the fullest beginning with the establishment of 1959 Stabilization Plan, which opened the economy to the whole world as well as modernised it, then with the Town Development Plan which expanded to the full tourist 5 accomodations; the rehabilitation of buildings deemed valuable as historic monuments also called Paradores Nacionales; the construction of edifices or landmarks which were valuable as places of interest; all-out promotion to the whole world in international fairs and symposia; the training and emergence of technocrats actively involved in tourism and all other national efforts, Spain rose to become one of the world's leading tourism countries in the whole world and one of the favorite destinations of UK travellers. In 1999 alone, Spain earned $25.179 million from its tourism receipts ranking second to USA's $73 million and bagging 7.2% of the world's share of tourist income. But in terms of tourist arrivals 51,958,000 travellers arrived in Spain nosing out USA which only had 46,983,000 . France led everybody with 71,400,000 tourists (World Tourism Organization). In 2005, Spain's tourist arrivals went up to 55.6 million ranking it behind France's 76 million ( Alvares et al 2008). In 2006, Spain was visited by 58.5 million tourists with British tourists overtaking the Germans as Spain's top tourism market. This was exceeded only by France which had 75.1 million arrivals. USA placed third (Sestrillo 2009). That Spain is economically dependent on its tourism industry is made evident by the fact that it annually contributes a big chunk to the nation's GNP. In 1995 alone, it supplied 18.55% of Spain's GNP. Moreover, it employed 1,147,000 Spaniards which comprise 9.52% of Spain's working population. Its tourism growth rate is exceptional except for the years 1974-76 when the oil crisis reared its ugly head and the years 1989-91, the years of the economic recession. During these periods the number of tourists decreased illustrating to the whole world the sensitivity and the vulnerability of the industry to economic factors . That the condition of the British economy might have repercussions and may adversely affect Spain's tourism industry is shown by the fact that since Spain had firmly set in place 6 its tourism industry, the British tourists had consistently ranked second next to the Germans as the major source of market for Spanish tourism. In 1996 alone, 61,785,400 tourists arrived in Spain of which 27.7% or 17,114,555 were Britons. Only German tourists which comprised 34.2% of the arrivals outvisited the Britons (Apostolopoulos 2001,pp.25,26). In the 2000's British tourists eclipsed Germans as Spain's top tourism market. We can therefore conclude that any change in the British economy will have a domino effect to Spanish tourism. This is based on the statistical data which reveals that in time of economic recession, tourists stay put in their cities and tend to hold their money fearing a further decline in the economy would adversely affect them. The State of UK Tourism UK has consistently entrenched itself as one of the world's primary tourism hotspots. It is consistently ranked fifth in terms of value of tourism sales and fifth again in terms of tourist arrivals. In 1999, UK earned $20.972 million from its tourism sales receipts and thus netting 4.6% of the world's tourism income. In that same year 25,740,000 visitors arrived to enjoy its sceneries (World Tourism Organization). According to Secretary of State on Culture James Purnell, "the UK's flourishing tourism industry generates over 85 billion pounds a year for the British economy. It is one of our biggest employers, directly responsible for 1.4 million jobs, or one in every 20 people in work" (Purnell 2008,p.1). If Britons indirectly employed by UK tourism are added, the figure rises to 2.1 million or 7.7% of the UK workforce. UK is gearing itself to catch up the world tourism leaders with its winning the hosting of the 2012 Olympic Games and the 2012 Paralympic Games and it's all systems go as VisitBritain goes full gear with 7 a solid travel and tourism strategy "to promote Britain internationally in 36 markets" (VisitBritain, the National Tourism Agency). It has also recently been confirmed that Scotland is now Europe's leading ecotourism destination and the factors that made it so is its pristine sceneries, pure unadulterated atmosphere and waters and its incomparable biodiversity. Thus UK's Green Tourism Business Scheme will be organised and utilised to the full so that UK can entrench itself at the forefront of the premier tourism destinations of the world ( Green Tourism Business Scheme). The State of British Economy As A Threat To Spanish and UK Tourism Tourism in Spain is determined to push its way to gain more visitors and more tourism sales and in the process topple France as the leading tourist destination in the world . UK also looks sanguine to achieve its goals with its winning the right to host the 2012 Summer Olympics. But dark forces are lurking behind to spoil their dreams. We reiterate to say that tourism is a volatile and mercurial undertaking. So many factors can bring it down. It had been proven from various tourism data, that whenever there's an oil and energy crisis, wars, terrorist attacks like that of September 11 World Trade Center attacks, religious fundamentalism movements, drastic exchange rate changes, bad governance, political instability, isolationist and other inimical foreign relations policies and most importantly economic recession, tourism figures especially the number of tourists going out for travel visits dip down. It is understandable because all the mentioned factors engender fear of travel and security and safety concerns are brought to the fore. Thus people abandon plans for expensive holidays abroad. 8 After the 9/11 bombings, tourism all over the world took a nosedive and UK was not exempt. Prior to that fateful tragedy, international arrivals was at 697 million. The year 2002 saw the tourist arrivals falling down to 689 million visitors arriving at different destinations, "with the last four months of 2001 seeing an 11% fall globally, with a decrease in every region" ( Page & Connell 2006 ,p.38). The attacks had also disrupted and slowed down UK tourism (London Business School Centre for Economic Forecasting 2005,p.22). If that was not enough, the foot and mouth disease and SARS epidemics and the dire effects of UK's participation in the second Gulf War came to bedevil the UK tourism some more (VisitBritain.com). Great Britain suffered three major recession periods in its modern history i.e. the economic recession of the early 1980's and that of the early 1990's, both of which were characterised by the slowing down of the economy, retrenchment and job losses. The third recession is currently on-going and threatens to be grimmer than the previous two. Economy was so dismal in the early 1990's as 27,000 workers in the engineering sector lost their jobs and manufacturing companies were forced to fold down and business confidence and investment was at its lowest ebb (Turner 1995,p.123). Correlatively, Spanish tourism weakened as British travellers, which form a big chunk of its market share, were forced to stay at home and brace for a possible economic meltdown. While in 1989, tourist arrivals in Spain registered a high 54,057,600 arrivals, the following year suffered a decline with only 52,044,100 tourists coming for their holidays. 1991 saw another bleak year for Spanish tourism as only 53,495,000 tourists came. The year 1992 marked a return to normalcy as tourist arrivals in Spain reached 55,330,700 (Apostolopoulos 2001,p.25). It is worthwhile to note that the same year saw a 9 resurgence of British economy as the Thatcher government made moves to regenerate the economy using EC funding and stimulating and strengthening public-private enterprise partnerships. As USA went into economic recession in 2008, countries across the globe followed suit in chain reaction-style. UK quickly followed in USA's wake . After a 0.6% drop of the gross domestic product in the third quarter, a 1.6% drop of the GDP finished off the year 2008. The economic contraction produced a dismal exchange rate, the lowest in 24 years, with the British pound devalued at $US1.55 to a pound while the FTSE 100 index fell below 4,000 points, which is an almost 2% fall. While the pound was devalued, all the elements of the economy except for agriculture shrank and contributed to the downturn. Manufacturing contracted by 4.6% , the largest contributor to the slowdown. Unemployment with 1,920,000 people already out of work is bringing more woes to the troubled nation while the housing market continues its march to the deepest depression as retail sales remain weak (BBC News 2009). That Spanish tourism was greatly affected by the economic turmoil in UK was directly admitted by the Spanish government. According to a Madrid news article dated February 23, 2009, " Tourist arrivals in Spain plunged more than 10% on the year in January, due partly to a sharp drop in the number of Britons visiting the world's second biggest holiday destination". The article mentioned that out of 2.6 million tourists who arrived in Spain last January, only 575,037 Britons came. This is a 20.5 % decrease of British arrivals as compared to January 2008. The government claimed the culprit is the exchange rate of the pound vis--vis that of the euro which forced Britons who dared to travel to shun Spain in favor of cheap markets such as Egypt and Turkey (FXStreet.com 2009). 10 In reality the Spanish tourism slowdown could already be felt in 2008, where Spain slid down to third place behind France and USA in terms of number of visitors. It reflected the state of the British economy and seemed to be its indicator . In 2008, Spain's number of arrivals plunged down to a mere 43,252,000 tourists and thus was caught by USA which had 47,752,000 visitors with France pulling ahead from everybody (Nationmaster.com). UK tourism finally pulled itself from stagnation in 2004 with its tourism value pegged at "600 million pounds ahead of its worth in 2000" and with 26.3 million visitors coming over to UK (Hospitality Net) . 2005 proved to be a redeeming year as UK regained its fifth spot among the world's tourism destinations after it was ejected by China and entrenched the UK tourism sector as the nation's fifth largest industry with its economic value placed at 102 billion pounds, thereby comprising 5% of UK's GDP and employing 2.2 million people (CatererSearch 2007). The year 2006 marked the stabilisation of UK economy and thus an overall increase in wealth and despite the open sky policy that engendered low cost fares and thus stiff global tourism competition and despite the 2005 London bombings, UK tourism managed to grow by 10% from the previous year. 2007 saw a plethora of problems for UK tourism. The UK government had been pelted with accusations of being lukewarm and indifferent to the potentials of the tourism industry and since 1997 had frozen tourism budgets. It has also been accused of implementing policies inimical to the tourism industry that self-styled prognosticators see stormy weather ahead for the industry. In February 1, 2007 the Alistair Darling government increased the air passenger duty by twice the amount. The APD increased from 5 to 10 pounds for intra-EU economy; from 10 to 11 20 for non-economy; from 20 to 40 for long-haul economy; from 40 to 80 pounds for long-haul non-economy. Ostensibly the aim was to curtail climate change and because aviation was pointed to as one major contributor to climate change, the escalation of APD rates was expected to bring carbon savings of more or less 0.3 MtC a year by 2010-11 (aviationwatch.eu). Disgruntled citizens claimed the government is on a tax-increase binge with more aviation taxes disguised as green taxes and more income tax cuts purportedly to stimulate the economy. 2 billion pounds a year had been raised from APD increases. According to the chief executive of Abta, Mark Tanzer, "there is no evidence that a penny is set aside to help the planetThis will handicap the (tourism) industry and jeopardise families' chances of their much-needed break in the sun" (Gray & Starmer-Smith 2008). Kurt Janson of Tourism Alliance accused Darling of "crude political opportunism. and a very little understanding of the UK tourism industry or of the impacts of increasing APD" (Caterersearch 2009). It had also been claimed that "a 1% increase in the cost of travel to the UK results in a 1.3% decrease in the UK's tourism receipts" and will worsen Britain's tourism deficit. This system deters the most lucrative tourists and make them shun UK in favor of cheaper destinations and in the long-run signals the death knell of the tourism industry in UK as well as slow down the tourism industry of Spain, where UK visitors are presently considered the top tourism market in that country. The worse thing, they claimed, that all these tax burdens and rate increases were so untimely as everyone's starting to feel the pinch of credit crunch, the volatile fuel prices and the nascent effects of a looming recession. The policy might be good for domestic tourism but it certainly is fatal to international 12 tourism. Because of adverse government policies tourist arrivals in 2007 increased by a paltry 0.2% over 2006 as a mere 32.8 million visitors showed up. Total tourist spending also dwindled by 0.3% with measly receipts of 16 billion pounds (Bergerson 2008) . The UK tourism data for 2008 is disheartening if not less encouraging as only 32 million tourists managed to visit UK, down by 2%. Tourist spending however, salvaged what's left of UK pride as it recorded 16.4 billion pounds, an increase of 3% (iOLtravel.co.za. 2009). But the alarming data is that the 3rd and 4th quarters of 2008 showed an incontrovertible trend of recession. In the 3 months before December, only 7.01 million came, down by 12% while in December only 2.11 million arrived, down by 17%. The first quarter of 2009 was even more disturbing and alarming as the decline of visitor arrivals continued. Correlatively numbers of British tourists fell down precipitously as the pound continues to lose ground against the euro, the dollar and the yen. Meanwhile, economic recession in UK rages incessantly. The Official Cash Rate is at 1.5%, which is an all time low; the problem of credit crunch goes unabated; housing prices keep falling down; unemployment especially in London's financial sector mercilessly goes on; businesses close down. In fact business confidence has hit a 16-year low and the banking sector and the delivery of banking services is not in the pink of health while GDP in 2009 is forecasted to plunge to -3.2% and GDP for 2010 is also estimated at -1.1% (Tourism New Zealand). And all of these are directly reflected in the continuing decline of UK tourism. The more these sectors or factors plunge down, the more UK tourism degenerates. 13 One major factor that caused UK tourism to go awry and Spanish tourism to slacken is the devaluation to its lowest level in December 2008 of the sterling against the euro and the US dollar. In the first part of 2008, the pound sterling was worth $US2. In December, the pound has lost value by 25% to $US1.5. The euro also gained against the pound. By late 2007, the pound was valued at 1.5 euro. In December 2008, it was devalued by 30% at 1.05 euro. These devaluations had struck fear in both the travel providers and the British tourists that the economic turmoil and the weakened pound may cause travellers to forego their annual holidays. The travel operators reacted by slashing air fares and tourism expenditures such as hotel rates and prices of restaurant meals to no avail. "The sterling's rapid decline means those prices have actually gone up" (uk.pdf(application/pdf Object). The devaluation of the pound against the euro has also caused British travellers to evade like the plague Spain and instead sojourn to cheaper locales. This is because with the devaluation, the cost of sojourning to the Spanish holiday destinations has jacked up by 20% more. The devaluation of the pound has drastically affected tourism in Spain's Costa Blanca which relies heavily on British vacationers which comprise 54% or 2.5 million Britons of its total visitors. " The reduction in the numbers is a reflection of a deep cutbacks in expenditure by people in the United Kingdom" ( Eezirent 2008). The pound devaluation though gives the UK domestic tourism the opportunity to benefit from an economic tragedy. The weak currency and the slash in fares, hotels and car rents mean attraction to overseas visitors and also "means that a holiday at home is now the best option for British residents" ( Opodo travel news). The credit crunch is one factor that hastened the economic turmoil in UK in 2008 & 14 2009. A credit crunch is a sudden reduction in the general availability of loans or credit or a sudden tightening of the conditions required to obtain loans from banks( Wikipedia Encyclopedia). This credit crunch spawned a lending drought that pulled down the housing and the construction sectors and inevitably pulled down the rest of the sectors. The IMF warned that there shall be no economic recovery until the financial sector begins functioning again (Metro.co.uk). And there shall be no recovery of the Spanish and the UK tourism until the financial sector gets its acts together. At the heart of the recession are the lending banks' refusal to lend to British businesses, thus fuelling closures of businesses and the falling down of housing prices. While during the recession of the 1990's, banks in UK made available their banking services and patiently stayed with the troubled sectors until the recession was over, in the current UK recession lending banks, alarmed by the bankruptcy of the Lehman brothers and other economic downturns were affected and thus ensued their unwillingness to lend to British businesses. "Thus in the final months of the year, outstanding loans to UK businesses by UK banks turned down" (Weale 2009,p.71). Various data also showed falling down of "secured mortgage lending and unsecured consumer credit lending to individuals.while lending to small businesses has stagnated"(Weale 2009,p71). Meanwhile psychologically motivated fears over exposure to potential losses on high-risk US mortgages have caused UK banks from lending even with each other as the UK stock market keeps on teetering from volatility. All of these have "revealed shaky foundations in banking institutions that once seemed invincible" (Telegraph.co.uk 2009). For the meantime, the recession keeps on raging and the future of both Spanish and UK tourism is in limbo. 15 Conclusion Today, the United Kingdom is grappling with an economic crisis that's fatally debilitating and affects all sectors of society. Its cause is a melange of factors , all of which were ignited by psychological fears of exposure to potential losses by UK banks on high-risk US mortgages. What followed was a credit crunch and the chain reaction begins: the falling down of housing prices, closure of businesses, unemployment, inflation, devaluation of the pound. Then UK has entered a grim, threatening recession period . And one of those badly affected was UK's tourism industry as visitors to UK dwindled fast. With decisions and actions of the UK government that many deemed to be inimical to the tourism industry, the industry is on the verge of a serious decline. With the sad state of economic affairs in UK, the Spanish tourism is also caught in its infectious maelstrom. This is because in the 2000's British visitors have formed the main and the prime market of the Spanish tourism industry. With the gripping economic malady sending UK citizens on the brink of financial insecurity, UK tourists prefer to forego their annual holiday vacations. For those who would dare spend their holidays abroad, the devalued pound sterling forces them to seek cheaper vacations elsewhere than in Spain where the cost of sojourning to the Spanish tourism meccas has risen up by 20% more. When all these will end, no one is certain. 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