The UK’s increased tourist appeal can partly be explained by the London government’s decision to lift all epidemiological restrictions on travel in March, according to Bloomberg. The agency also recalled that restrictions „included costly Covid tests and quarantine”. 

„As the report shows, as soon as restrictions for people coming to the UK were relaxed, the number of airline bookings rose from 59 per cent below the 2019 level to 40 per cent above pre-Covid levels in around six weeks” – Bloomberg writes. 

The UK is not the only European country enjoying an increase in the number of visitors. „If flight bookings continue at the current pace, 1.5 billion more passengers will travel worldwide in 2022 than last year,” – the Master Card Economic Institute explains in a recent report. 

„The biggest growth will be in Europe, where 550 million more flights are expected to be booked this year than in 2021 […] Although travel is making a comeback, the tourism industry is still struggling […] Rising commodity costs will strain people’s purchasing power, especially for discretionary spending such as travel,” Bloomberg concludes, as quoted by Bankier.pl.

Image: Unsplash

Author: Sébastien Meuwissen