Resources

Economic Importance of Tourism - ONS Report 2008

Executive Summary

This report describes a new UK Tourist Satellite Account (UK-TSA) for the reference year 2008. The UK-TSA allows us to separate the regular household expenditure of UK residents from that of tourists, both domestic and overseas, which are taken together in the main National Accounts. The UK-TSA is a complex account that attempts to reconcile demand data from tourism surveys with information on the supply of goods and services generated by tourism related industries within a System of National Accounts framework.

The UK-TSA is a technique that seeks to calculate the value of tourism in a way that allows it to be compared with other economic activities, and with tourism elsewhere. In this UK-TSA there are a number of improvements in methodology and data inputs over the previous experimental TSA for 2006, for example the extent of employment in tourism characteristic and connected industries is examined.

The UK-TSA shows that 2008 tourists spent almost £114 billion on trips within the UK. This total comprises of £96.3 billion spent within the UK by UK residents and £16.3 billion spent in the UK by overseas visitors. A further £1 billion was spent by UK residents on the upkeep of holiday homes. The domestic spending on tourism trips includes £21.3 billion spent on overnight visits and £48.3 billion spent during same day visits. Of the spending on foreign tourism, £26.9 billion was spent in the UK on items such as air fares and travel agencies’ services. Additionally £36.8 billion was spent by UK residents abroad.

Important categories for domestic tourists spending within the UK included food and beverage services, at £19.3 billion, accommodation (£6.9 billion), passenger transport services (£3.6 billion) and cultural services (£3.2 billion). However, the biggest single category was the miscellaneous ‘other consumption products’ (£33.0 billion) which includes items such as retail and the operation of personal transport. The biggest item of their spending within the UK on foreign trips was on air fares (£15.7 billion).

The account also looks at what foreign tourists spent in the UK. Of their total spending of £16.3 billion, the biggest slice was accounted for by other consumption products (£7.3 billion). This was followed by accommodation (£4.7 billion) and food and beverage services (£2.8 billion).

Also examined is the ‘tourism ratio’ of these different sectors – the proportion of the domestic supply of tourism-characteristic products that is consumed by tourists. The highest ratio was for accommodation at 84 per cent followed by travel agency services at 68 percent and cultural activities at 66 per cent. The tourism ratios allow us to calculate the direct gross value added of tourism which stood at just under £47 billion in 2008.

This TSA includes estimates of tourism employment in the UK and shows that total employment in tourism related industries in 2008 was 3.4 million with employment supported directly by tourism spending standing at just over 1.7 million.

 

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