Tourism stays silent in London
City attractions target mid-may reopening
LONDON – 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 normally 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 came to an almostcomplete standstill.
The quiet has been surreal for Amanda Clark, one of the Tower’s famous resident guards known as Yeoman Warders, or Beefeaters. The affable Clark, a retired sergeant major, lives for interacting with people: directing tourists, telling them stories, 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 really quite 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.”
After three national lockdowns, London’s tourist attractions and other hospitality businesses are making tentative plans 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 still in place everywhere and Europe battling a new surge of infections, many are bracing for another bleak year.
For London’s tourism industry, which employs one in seven workers in the capital, the pandemic has been a body blow.
With hotels, attractions and leisure shopping in a near-total shutdown, the industry’s contribution to London’s economy plunged from $21.6 billion in 2019 to just $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 $137 million shortfall because of COVID-19.
Many expect a slow recovery, particularly because London always has been reliant 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 normal times, short-haul markets like European countries would generally be expected to recover faster than longhaul 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 simply isn’t possible.”