ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the features of the tourism industry in Britain, a major recipient of overseas tourists on the global scene and a major generator of both domestic and international tourism. For the international tourist, Britain offers a rich variety of landscapes and weather conditions, an attractive culture and a diversity of attractions based largely on heritage. Its wide accommodation base, focused on the coasts and the major cities, is supported by a comprehensive internal transport network inclusive of international gateways of global significance such as the Channel Tunnel. Tourism in Britain is administered by a newly reorganised structure of organisations involving the private as well as the public sector. Inbound tourism demand is influenced by many factors including the relative strength of currencies, the health of the economy, special events, external world events (for example ‘9/11’). The demand by residents of Britain for holidays abroad has increased steadily since the Second World War. During this time, social and economic changes have had a defining influence on the demand for domestic and international tourism. A combination of economic circumstances and the response of the travel industry has converted suppressed demand into effective demand for holidays abroad. Britainis consistently one of the world’s top tourist generators and the long-established pattern of domestic holidays spent at the seaside is changing. Around 60 per cent of the British population now take a holiday in any one year, but, even so, there is a hard core of those who do not travel.
