The plunging pound may cause British holidaymakers to choke at the prices if and when they next choose to go abroad. But one slice of the travel industry is seeing a silver lining in the storm clouds.
Tour operators catering for visitors are quietly calling it their best month for bookings since October 2019 as US tourists take advantage of sterling’s tumble.
Gathering at a conference in Aberdeen this week, there was renewed optimism from executives whose businesses were battered during the pandemic.
Joss Croft, the chief executive of UKInbound, said the economy was a huge topic of conversation in a sector that “has had its own recession for the last two years”.
Inbound tourism’s second biggest pre-pandemic market, China, is still closed off, but by far the biggest source of visitors is usually the US – and numbers are rebounding fast after their restrictions were eased in June. And the average American tourist already splashes out three times what an average UK holidaymaker will spend on a domestic trip.
“Anything that can incentivise travel from the US is helpful,” said Croft. American tourists spent £4.2bn in 2019, a figure that could increase next year with the strong dollar.
“It was $1.37 to the pound a year ago. Now – well, I haven’t checked for 10 minutes,” said Croft. “But in the last few days more people have been putting down hard dollars for next year, money into people’s banks right now, with the commitment that they are going to come.”
The pound fell to a record low against the dollar on Monday of just above $1.03, and was hovering above $1.10 on Friday.
Lana Bennett, the chief executive of Tours International, a family-run bespoke tour firm catering mainly for US visitors, said: “After everything we’ve been through for us it’s quite good news. We’re seeing a spike in inquiries, there’s a lot more certainty, more keenness – people want to get things firmed up and take full advantage.”
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