London Olympics May Not Benefit Tourism

According to Visit Britain, London Olympics are not likely to help tourism industry in the country. Tourism is likely to face displacement effect due to London Olympics and arrivals may drop by 5 to 10 per cent for 2011.

This is big blow for the PM David Cameron who is seeing London Olympics as big boost for the UK tourism industry. Visit Britain is expecting somewhere around 30.7 million tourists to visit UK next year. This would be around drop of 4 per cent to rise of 2 per cent arrivals.

Visit Britain has also expressed concerned over displacement effect that has been talked about tour operators as well. All previous Olympics host cities have suffered from this effect that leads to drop in tourists for several years after the Olympics.

Although British politicians do not agree with the theory of displacement effect and claim that tourism will be big winner from the Olympics. But it seems like PM David Cameron has also taken serious notes of displacement effect. The £100 million marketing plan to woo foreign tourists for next four years is believed to be announced to counter effects of displacement effect.

Visit Britain while sees Olympics as great way to market the nation, it also understands the challenges posed by the games. Tourism in UK won’t have to worry about just the displacement effect but deteriating economic conditions around the world and high air passenger duty.

One thing is for sure that 2012 would be highly unpredictable year for the tourism. Oxford Economics, four years ago predicted 322,000 tourists for the games, their latest research has slashed the number to 294,000. Another big issue in front of UK is rising protest against London Olympics in India. Dow Chemical sponsoring the event has not gone well in India as Bhopal Gas tragedy victims are asking people to boycott the games.