For every worker in Britain's car industry, there are five busy in its tourism sector. Tourism is a massive business for Britain, maintaining 1.7 million jobs and generating £40 billion a year for the UK economy.
It is hardly surprising that the visitors keep coming. With its colourful history, heritage and traditions - ranging from the Lord Mayor's Show in London to kilted pipers in Scotland - combined with trend-setting architecture, music, cuisine and design, Britain has risen to fifth in the world tourism league. There were nearly 26 million visitors in the country in 1998, spending £12.8 billion and this is forecast to rise to 27.5 million and £14.7 billion respectively in 2000. Not content with this healthy state of affairs, Britain is building visitor attractions on a scale not seen since the 19th century. About £5 billion is ear-marked for a wide range of new structures, ranging from futuristic science centres, art galleries, theatres and opera houses to new city waterfronts, a traffic-free national cycle-path network - even an 'indoor tropical rainforest!'
The common link is the country's determination to mark the new millennium with more panache that almost any other country. The centre-piece is a giant dome in Greenwich, London, which, on the Prime Meridian, is the starting point of world time and therefore a natural focus for year 2000 events. There will also be parties, fireworks displays and open-air theatrical events in cities up and down the land over the New Year period. But it is not just one night, nor even one year. The new millennium is being promoted as a three-year campaign, with the opening of the major new attractions staged over the 1999-2001 period.
Though
tourism is a big industry, it is highly fragmented, with at least 200,000
businesses involved. These range from airlines, transport networks, hotel
and restaurant chains and big theme park operators, to stately homes,
museums and galleries, tourist information centres and family run 'bed
and breakfast' accommodation. The public body responsible for promoting
Britain around the world is the British Tourist Authority, with offices
or representatives in 27 countries, but many other public organisations
also have a stake in tourism. These include the national tourist boards
of Scotland and Wales, ten regional tourist boards in England, and most
city and local authorities.
As
you might expect, it is London that is most popular with visitors from
overseas, attracting just over half the total sum. But second-time and
subsequent visitors in particular are much more adventurous, many of them
missing out London sightseeing altogether as they head for the Scottish
Highlands, picture-postcard south-east or south-west England, mysterious
Wales, Shakespeare Country (the heart of England) or Brontë Country
(West Yorkshire). Among the cities which are tops with tourists are the
Scottish capital, Edinburgh, in the world spotlight since the royal opening
of the new Scottish parliament; historic York, Bath, Durham and Canterbury;
scholarly Oxford and Cambridge; and seaside resorts such as Brighton,
Blackpool and Torquay. Cities which hitherto would not have been considered
tourist honey-pots are now among the most popular, thanks to their new
attractions, shopping, vibrant night-life, café culture, or a combination
of all these.
They include Birmingham, the Welsh capital Cardiff, Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool and Newcastle upon Tyne. Yorkshire, for example, once a power-house of the industrial revolution, now boasts the new National Centre for Popular Music (Sheffield), the Royal Armouries Museum (Leeds), and the most popular national museum outside the capital: the National Museum of Photography, Film and TV (Bradford), together with superb shopping, bustling city waterfronts and the like. Several millennium attractions have already opened.
They
include London's new Sadler's Wells Theatre, a world-class centre for
touring, dance, opera and music companies, and sections of the Millennium
Cycle Routes, a mainly off-road pedal-cycle network which will eventually
cover 3,500 miles - a green and healthy way to see Britain! In April,
the first phase of the Earth Centre, dedicated to the cause of sustainability,
opened near Doncaster, Yorkshire, while Dynamic Earth (July) in Edinburgh
uses the latest technology and special effects to tell the geological
story of the planet Earth. In Cardiff, a new 75,000 seater Millennium
Stadium opens in time to host the Rugby World Cup (Oct 2 - Nov 2) while
work has started on the world's largest observation wheel, the London
Eye, on the South Bank of the River Thames, which will give visitors a
spectacular aerial view of the biggest capital city in Europe. It sums
up Britain and the pace of change in this fascinating country - breathtaking.
Comprehensive information for visitors can be found on the British Tourist Authority's Web site: www.visitbritain.com.
Author
Bob Barton
British Tourist Authority
