LONDON — On a recent June weekend, visitors jammed the South Bank of the River Thames for a chance to ride the London Eye, a popular Ferris wheel that draws people from around the world. The U.K.’s capital city has been rattled by four deadly terrorist attacks since March, but that didn’t seem to instill fear in visitors such as German college students Merlin Knief, of Cologne, and his girlfriend Lea, of Berlin.
“It shouldn’t change your lifestyle,” Knief says. “So, we’ll go where we want to go. But I am just a bit more aware.” Besides, added Lea, who did not provide her last name: “It could happen in Berlin, too.”
Many others agree with the German pair. The United Kingdom’s massive tourism industry, estimated to annually contribute $161.3 billion to the country’s economy, is not only holding up, but thriving. According to new government and industry statistics, tourists from North America, the European Union and Asia continue to pour into Britain — at record numbers, in some instances. Visitors are apparently shrugging off the threat of terrorism and many are taking advantage of bargains created by a pound that’s been weakened by Britain’s impending divorce, or Brexit, from the EU.
Visitors to the U.K. say that while the recent spate of terrorist assaults was on their minds, it wasn’t enough to scare them off. Attacks this year in London have claimed at least 39 lives and injured more than 200.
In the first four months of the year, U.K. tourism hit a record 11.8 million visitors, a jump of 11 percent from the same period in 2016. Tourism from North America and the EU was up 16 and 11 percent, respectively, according to VisitBritain, the country’s official tourism website run by the British Tourist Authority. April alone saw a total of 3.7 million visitors coming into Britain, a jump of 19 percent from April 2016. Such increases are significant; the tourism sector represents 9 percent of the country’s gross domestic product.
Three of the four terrorist attacks occurred after April. But ForwardKeys, a travel analytics company, says that as of June 17, international arrivals bookings through July and August are running 12 percent ahead of last year. While bookings slowed a bit after the June 3 London Bridge attack that left 11 dead and 48 wounded, it said, “There was no significant wave of cancellations.”
The surge in tourism this year is “mostly down to the value of the pound,” explains David Tarsh, ForwardKeys’ spokesperson. Although the falling pound is causing inflation to rise, squeezing the finances of many Britons, it’s also made the country cheaper for many tourists. During the past year, the pound has weakened nearly 16 percent and 15 percent against the U.S. dollar and euro, respectively.
A $3.7 million VisitBritain ad campaign, co-funded by American Airlines and British Airways, began running in the U.S. in April, and it stressed that Britain was now “a great value.”
One very popular tourist site is the “zebra” road crossing outside the iconic Abbey Road Studios, where the Beatles recorded most of their beloved tunes. Tourists still flock to pose for pictures on the crossing, which was made famous by the cover photograph on the Fab Four’s 1969 “Abbey Road” album.
Recent visitors included Kathy Willoughby, her husband and 17-year-old son (the family’s Beatles fan), of Washington, D.C.
“I am not put off by it, but we watch what we do,” she says of terror threats, explaining that they’re avoiding large crowds and concerts. “I do think that terrorism is increasing here and it will hurt their tourism unless they do something about it. We all need to do more about it. I’m a Trump supporter, 100 percent. And I agree we need to do more to cut immigration.”
Francisco Ruz, of Valencia, Spain, is a bit more ambivalent toward terror threats. “It worries me, it matters, but I am not scared,” says Ruz, who with his wife and stepdaughter also was visiting Abbey Road. “In Spain, we’ve had terrorism, too.”
Parliament Square sits in the shadow of Big Ben and is just a few hundred yards away from Westminster Bridge, where on March 22 an Islamist attacker killed five people and injured 50 by ramming his car into pedestrians and then fatally stabbing a policeman. There, Claudia and Bernd Hops, a German couple who live in Grenoble, France, were taking a short break from wandering around London after going to a Robbie Williams concert the night before. “It is in the back of your mind,” Claudia admits. “I assume it’s possible when you see so many people everywhere. My mind thinks, ‘What if?'”
But Janine Caldow, of Perth, Australia, expresses no great fear of being caught up in an attack. “Our friends were more nervous for us than we were,” she says while taking in Buckingham Palace with her family. “And there is security everywhere.”
Indeed. While the mood of the crowds around the city was upbeat and lighthearted, the city’s stepped-up security efforts are also clearly on display — an unsettling reminder of the recent attacks. Well-armed police are highly visible, helicopters hover in the skies, and police cars regularly race around the streets, sirens blaring, blue lights flashing. Westminster Bridge is now fitted with bollards to stop vehicles from mounting the sidewalk.
Tourists there were unanimous in saying they were enjoying London and would gladly make a return trip. Nevertheless, while the cheap pound is almost certainly drawing tourist traffic to Britain, no one interviewed says it was a factor in their decision to visit the U.K.
“We didn’t care; we would have come here anyway,” Willoughby says.
Adds Lea, the Berliner: “For us students, it’s still very expensive.”
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Despite Terror Attacks, Tourism in U.K. at New Highs originally appeared on usnews.com
