Mayor of London proposes £10m investment in domestic and international tourism

The Mayor of London has unveiled plans to invest £10 million in new domestic and international campaigns to attract more tourists to the capital.

The proposals are in addition to mayor Sadik Khan’s £6 million domestic tourism campaign, Let’s Do London, which is attributed with bringing in an extra £70 million in spend and 280,000 visitors to the capital – a return on investment of £18 for every £1 spent.

The new £10 million investment would include £3 million to attract domestic tourists back to London. This campaign would aim to increase confidence in the capital as a destination and promote cultural and sporting activities in London.

The mayor is proposing to spend the remaining £7 million on a dedicated international marketing drive to attract tourists back to the capital from this spring as travel restrictions are eased globally. This campaign would be led by destination agency London & Partners.

The funding was announced as the mayor published his final budget for the Greater London Authority Group for 2022-2023.

Khan said: “London’s amazing hospitality, retail, and cultural sectors have faced an existential threat from the impacts of the Covid-19 – but now that restrictions for travellers coming to the UK have been eased, London is fully open once more and ready to retake its place as one of the most visited cities in the world.

“There is no doubt that the return of international tourism will be central to London’s economic recovery.

“I am pleased that we will be able to extend our hugely successful Let’s Do London campaign and I look forward to working with London and Partners and the wider tourism industry as we attract international tourists back to enjoy our wonderful city and showcase everything the capital has to offer.”

The proposals were welcomed by domestic tourism body UKHospitality, which said visitors to London go on to spend more than £640 million in local economies outside the capital. Prior to the pandemic, 15% of overseas visitors to London came to the capital as part of wider trip to the UK.

Chief executive Kate Nicholls said: “This is exactly the sort of support the hospitality and tourism sector needs in order to recover from the pandemic and attract people back into the capital.

“London has so much to offer domestic and international tourists, as brilliantly showcased by the Let’s Do London campaign, and is crucial to driving economic recovery, not just in London but beyond.”

She said that tourism and hospitality businesses remained in a “fragile state” and  were “carrying crippling debt and facing a barrage of rising costs”.

But she also warned VAT increases could have a negative impact, adding: “Remaining an attractive destination for both international and domestic visitors will become more difficult if the planned VAT rise in April goes ahead and so we are urging the government to commit to keeping it at its current 12.5% level permanently.”

Prior to the pandemic, London was the third most visited city worldwide. Due to the pandemic, the number of overnight stays made by tourists to the capital more than halved in 2021 to 60.8 million with a spend of £3.8 million, compared to 147.4 million overnight visits and £18.8 billion spend in 2019.