Challenging Times
Word Count: 1603 Author: Kimi Ural Created: 2014
Internal Factors
Internal factors are things that happens inside the UK which affects inbound and domestic tourism. This can have a positive or negative effect on the UK such as the amount of visitors, the duration of visitors, how much visitors spend and how often they visit.
Health, Safety and Security within the UK
Tourists have an expectation of safety which means that it effects the number of tourists visiting a certain place in the UK through the safety checks and rules at the place and on the journey to it. This can be through x-Ray and liquid checks on airplanes or regular police checks at the destination. The airports in the UK are strict through not allowing the passengers to have any liquid in their hand luggage such as water, any kind of sprays, contact lenses solution, cosmetic and toiletries, gels, pastes and any other similarities as www.gov.uk shows to provide a safer flight for the customers and to avoid the risk of having a terrorist attack on the plane. There is also a bigger risk of getting attacked when being on holiday for inbound tourists because they are usually from a different culture and therefore look and dress differently which makes them to an easy target for robbers because tourists tend to go on a relaxing holiday and will not worry about safety as much. This means that the holiday residence needs to give them information on how to behave in certain areas and where it is safe to go on a day trip in the area. The Olympics attack in 2012 in London had an impact on domestic tourists because it was in the top ten of the worst sport terrorists attacks according to www.time.com which means that domestic tourists choose another destination over London because it may be safer.
The Olympics as I mentioned in the previous slide had a negative impact of the tourism to London in 2012. The Olympics attack still impacts the tourism today, after 3 years because tourists remember what happened in 2012 and therefore go to another destination inside the UK such as Manchester, Liverpool or Birmingham. However in the future I do not see a problem with London hosting the Olympics again because in about 10 to 20 years time people will have forgotten about the attack and the security settings will be stricter and therefore better and decrease the change of another attack on the Olympics. Jacques Rogger from IOC states on www.Dailymail.co.uk that they are planning on providing the Olympics in London again within the next 20 years. This means that London will gain more tourists through the event in the next couple of years and also in the further future if this event will get provided with enough safety requirements that another attack will not be possible. The more years will past the less people will remember therefore this negative event will turn positive again in the following years. So it may have been negative in 2012 but looking at the whole picture it will not be as negative for the UK.
Recession and Strength of the £
The recession and strength of the pound is depending on the current exchange course. If the pound is strong then less people will come to the UK because they get less value for their money if they exchange it compared to using the same money and travelling in their area. If the pound is weak then a lot of inbound tourists will choose the UK because they get more value for their money and cheap holidays are attractive to everyone. Currently more people tend to go on outbound tourism because of the exchange rate and the changes over the last years. I used the website www.xe.com to get information of the current and past exchange rates and created the following graph to show the changes. This graph shows the exchange rate from one Pound into Euros which is green and one Pound into US Dollars which is blue. I added a grey line on the Euro to show clearer understanding that the Pound got stronger over the years while the Euro got weaker. This can be an advantage for British families but also a disadvantage for tourism inside the UK because less people will come to the UK and more and more will go out for their holidays which can become dangerous for the tourism industries inside the UK if the strength of the Pound goes on.
Accessibility
Accessibility is how people can get to the UK and how they can get around at their destination. The UK is one of the most accessible countries in the world with the ability to get to the UK by plane, boat, the Channel Tunnel, bus or car. The variety of cheap methods to get to the UK such as low-cost airlines makes the UK popular for tourists with a low budget. This has an incredibly good impact on the UK because more inbound tourists will visit the UK through the easy and often transport methods. The internet makes is easier for inbound and domestic tourists to look at the accessibility from their destination. www.VisitBritain.com has got a list of the transport methods which are accessible for disabled people to get around inside the UK such as tube, buses, trams, rail, taxies and more. This has got a positive impact on the UK because it gives domestic and inbound disabled people the opportunity to travel around without stress which makes the UK more popular to them than other countries which the statistics of visitors on www.VisitBritain.com show. The UK is keep developing with more and more recent transport methods therefore the visitor numbers have increase over the last years when it was 29.803 in 2010 then 30.793 in 2011 and 32.813 in 2013.
External Factors
External factors are factors which happen outside the UK and affect the numbers of inbound and domestic tourists inside the UK. External factors affect the UK in either a positive or negative way.
Competition from Other Destinations
This factor affects the UK massively because other countries and capitals keep growing and offering the customer more and more such as Dubai with its competitive attitude to continue building more attractions as it has got one of the worlds best new attractions as it states on www.emirates247.com. Because of Dubai’s growth more people have Dubai on their wish list of places they want to go to. Therefore I think that Dubai will be a big competitor to the UK in the future especially because of their plans for the future like it states on www.emirates247.com that the Dubai eye on the Blue waters island, the Dubai Water Chanel and the Deirdre in development. Another major factor why UK residential tourists may choose to go to Dubai rather than domestic travel inside the UK may be that today people get paid more than 10 years ago and the accessibility to other countries has developed a lot and become affordable for the normal worker. Also people today have a longer living expectation therefore have more time to travel and see different places. For example the current UK retirement age is between 60 and 70 depending on when the person was born this means that they have the opportunity to travel once they arrived their retirement age because they will have more money and time to travel outbound. Statistics show that the life expectancy in the UK is at 81.50 years therefore people in the future will be able to safe up their money to travel within their left lifetime of 20-30 years.
Weather
The impact of weather both internal and externally affects the inbound and domestic tourism to the UK. Turkey for example is closer to the equator and therefore has got a higher temperature average than the UK. I found two books one called `United Kingdom` and one called `Turkey` which state the average temperature in the cities Ankara and London. I used the information from both to create a graph which shows that Ankara has got a warmer climate. Most tourists go on holiday because they want to have better weather that’s why it can be an internal and an external factor through the weather changes inside and outside the UK. However in this case Turkey is warmer which is a disadvantage for the UK because they will loose customers in the summer holidays to places such as Turkey.
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Greetings! Very helpful advice within this article!
It is the little changes that will make the greatest changes.
Thanks for sharing!