Football plays pivotal role in driving UK tourism

Thursday, December 29, 2022

Football taking center-stage in Britain with the return of English Premier League, VisitBritain highlights Britain’s standing as the “home of football” across its digital and social channels, inspiring visitors to explore its vibrant football cities and associated attractions and experiences.

On Monday, the English Premier League returns to action after a six-week break, an unprecedented mid-season sabbatical due to the first-ever wintertime World Cup in Qatar.

With GCC being Britain’s second-most valuable inbound tourism market, VisitBritain promoted “Destination Britain” throughout Qatar 2022to inspire travel from the GCC during the World Cup and beyond, for the return of Premier League action.

All the GCC countries combined: there were 1.2 million trips from the Gulf nations to the UK in 2019, with these visitors spending $3.14 billion (£2.6 billion).

“The GCC is a very important tourism market for Britain,” said VisitBritain’s Interim Deputy Director Carol Maddison.

With the UK Government’s The Garden of GREAT and program of events for the World Cup we have a timely and valuable opportunity to highlight our outstanding tourism offer and the amazing experiences that GCC visitors — including football fans — can only have in Britain.

While London has historically been a favoured destination for many GCC travellers, more cities across the country have been attracting visitors.

Research by VisitBritain demonstrates the pivotal role that football increasingly plays in driving tourism to the UK.

In 2019, 1.5 million visits to the UK included watching a live football match, up 66 percent compared to 2011 when there were 909,000 visits, with football taking the top spot that year as the most popular live sporting event for international visitors.

The announcement from the UK government in June 2022 that it would remove the visa requirement for nationals of the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, and move onto the Electronic Travel Authorization scheme when it rolls out in 2023, will encourage more visitors to watch more football on their travels.

Football tourists, many of whom travel from Saudi and the UAE, tend to stay longer in Britain, 10 nights compared to all-market average of seven.

During that time they spend $1,100 (£909) per visit on average, 31 percent more than the global visitor average of $840 (£696) in 2019.

Football tourism benefits the entire visitor economy, supporting hospitality and attractions, as well as providing obvious income for individual clubs through their megastores which sell everything from the latest replica kits and training gear to scarves, toys, mugs and other merchandise.

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