Tourism in the UK during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of international tourists worldwide shrunk. In 2020, international tourist arrivals in the UK fell by 73 percent year-over-year. As forecast, tourist arrivals are not yet expected to recover to their previous levels in 2021, with arrivals predicted to number just over 11 million that year, when prior to the pandemic they added up to over 40 million. Meanwhile, outbound travel from the UK dropped by roughly 74 percent in 2020 compared to the year before.In addition to limiting international travel, the pandemic also affected domestic travel as stay-at-home orders were enacted to control the spread of the virus. In the UK, this can be seen in the large drop in British domestic tourism expenditure in 2020, which fell by 63 percent to a low of roughly 34 billion British pounds. Domestic day trips recorded the highest decrease in spending, and the share of Britons who reported taking no holidays at all increased over the course of the pandemic.