Beyond the pandemic: London tourism braces for slow recovery

Molly AronsonDecember 30, 2021

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LONDON (AP) – The cobblestones are deserted at the Tower of London. A biting wind blows, and there is no sign of life. Even the storied ravens are nowhere to be seen. England’s top-paid attraction, which usually draws more than 3 million visitors a year, has been closed for all but a dozen weeks since the pandemic began, and international tourism to London has come to an almost complete standstill.

The quiet has been surreal for Amanda Clark, one of the Tower’s famous resident guards, Yeoman Warders or Beefeaters. The affable Clark, a retired sergeant major, lives for interacting with people: directing tourists, telling them stories, and posing for their selfies. Before March 2020, she would have been doing that happily every day as crowds streamed into the attraction, also home to the Crown Jewels.

“It’s extraordinary how something so big and popular is just so quiet and empty,” said Clark, 46. “Don’t forget; we are classed as a prison. And these past few months have felt quite claustrophobic because there’s just been nobody here. Plagues, fires, war – London has survived them all. But it has never had a year like this. The coronavirus has killed over 15,000 Londoners and shaken the foundations of one of the world’s great cities. As a fast-moving mass vaccination campaign promises to reopen, The Associated Press looks at the pandemic’s impact on London’s people and institutions and asks what the future might hold.

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After three national lockdowns, London’s tourist attractions and other hospitality businesses are tentatively planning to reopen in mid-May — the earliest the government says international travel can resume. But deep uncertainty about COVID-19 remains. With quarantine requirements and travel restrictions everywhere and Europe battling a new surge of infections, many are bracing for another bleak year.

The pandemic has been a body blow for London’s tourism industry, which employs one in seven workers in the capital. With hotels, attractions, and leisure shopping in a near-total shutdown, the industry’s contribution to London’s economy plunged from 15.7 billion pounds ($21.6 billion) in 2019 to just 3 billion pounds ($4.1 billion) in the past year, according to VisitBritain, the national tourism agency.

Even national treasures like the Tower of London have struggled. Historic Royal Palaces, a charity that runs the Tower and other heritage attractions, has said it expected a 100 million-pound ($137 million) shortfall because of COVID-19. Many wish for a slow recovery, mainly because London has always relied on international tourism. Over half of all consumer spending in the West End – home to the city center’s bustling shops, restaurants, pubs, and theaters – typically comes from European and other overseas visitors.

In regular times, short-haul markets like European countries would generally be expected to recover faster than long-haul ones like the U.S. and Asia. But with the threat of coronavirus variants in Europe and the slow vaccine rollout on the continent, experts say tourists are highly unlikely to return in earnest until autumn.

“We can see that other countries, particularly our European neighbors who tend to be the biggest markets for us, we can see them going into third waves of COVID,” said Patricia Yates, director of strategy and communications at VisitBritain. “There is pent-up demand; people do want to come to Britain. But at the moment, that isn’t possible.” Nationally, officials forecast inbound tourism to generate just over 6 billion pounds ($8.2 billion) this year, compared with more than 28 billion pounds ($38 billion) in 2019. Heathrow Airport does not expect passenger flows to return to 2019 levels until around 2024.

Yates added that a key question for the recovery this year is whether cumbersome quarantine rules can be erased and replaced by an efficient system of vaccine certificates for travelers.

Stuart Procter, who manages the luxury Stafford Hotel near central London’s St. James’s Palace, would usually go on marketing trips to America, his core market. This year, he hasn’t bothered.

For many, planning a vacation to London now is impossible because there’s no certainty that significant events like the two-week Wimbledon tennis championships in July can usually go ahead, he said.

“They’re not coming. There are no activities. … There’s nothing for them to come to,” Procter said. “We’ve missed our cream; we missed our summer. I don’t think we’ll see any green shoots until the fourth quarter, if I’m honest.” Industry experts are confident that leisure travel will bounce back in the longer term, and tourists will return to London eventually. The big unknown, however, is whether business travel will ever be the same again.

“There’s much more of a question mark on business travel. And, of course, that affects the cities most,” said Yates of VisitBritain. “You know, those big four- or five-star hotels in London need business travelers returning.” Some attractions, including the Tower of London, plan to focus on domestic visitors to recoup some losses. Laura Citron, CEO of London & Partners, which promotes business and investment in the capital, said one strategy is to market this year as the golden opportunity for Britons to enjoy its top attractions without the usual crowds. “We’re very much focused, certainly through the spring and the early summer, on Londoners and people from the rest of the U.K. rediscovering the city,” Citron said.

That may be easier said than done. Many Britons flocked to coastal and rural destinations when restrictions eased last summer. Surveys have shown many remain wary of visiting a big city and using mass transit. London has always been proud of its public transportation network and how few people drive into the city, but that strength has become a weakness during the pandemic.

Some Londoners out on a recent weekend say that while they’ve enjoyed having the city to themselves, they’re also keen to see it reopen to visitors soon.

“The usual tourist attractions, which are usually chock-a-block with people from outside of town, feel a little bit more accessible in a way that’s unexpected,” said Ashleigh Muchatuta, 33.

“One of the things that makes London interesting is the fact it’s a melting pot, the variety of people that you can bump into and hear just walking through the city,” he added. “The things that attract people to the city are still going to be here and will outlast the pandemic, hopefully.”

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