According to tourism body VisitLondon, the capital is quickly returning to normal following the London bomb attacks on 7 July which left 52 people dead and 700 injured.
The explosions coincided with the start of the G8 summit in Scotland and came a day after London won its 2012 Olympic Games bid.
In a statement issued on 12 July VisitLondon said: “Life in London is quickly returning to normal after last week’s tragic attacks on the city. We want to assure people that London is very much open for business.”
Nearly 90 per cent of the London Underground infrastructure is back in operation – The Northern, Victoria and Metropolitan lines now stop at King's Cross while repairs have begun at Aldgate and police work continues at Edgware Road. A full service on the Circle and Hammersmith & City lines – and the District line to Edgware Road – is expected to be restored by 2 August.
Leisure industry experts have begun to assess the impact of the attacks and the Tourism Industry Emergency Response (TIER) group –facilitated by VisitBritain – has commissioned research from Oxford Economic Forecasting to find an accurate figure for the economic impact of the attacks on Britain’s £74bn visitor economy.
The research will be led by The Tourism Alliance, VisitLondon, the London Development Agency and VisitBritain.
Chief executive of VisitBritain, Tom Wright, said that initial results from the study are expected by 29 July. “The research will draw from actual London data and provide the most relevant and specific assessment of the impact on tourism.
“Current industry intelligence from London, the rest of Britain and VisitBritain’s 35 markets around the world indicates that any downturn will be short-lived – lasting weeks rather than months – and mainly London focused. It is clear that tourism has shown some resilience and recovery has already begun.”
Meanwhile, the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) Crisis Committee, convened to discuss the London events and the potential repercussion in the UK, unanimously agreed that early indications showed the impact on the UK’s travel and tourism industry would be limited.
This is bourne out as travel and tourism companies recovered their stock value within 24 hours of the attacks.
The council estimated that, post-attack, UK visitor arrivals could decline by approximately 590,000 from previously forecast levels of almost 31 million, representing a decline of 1.9 per cent.
Personal travel and tourism by UK residents could decline by £2.3bn – a loss of 2.3 per cent from previously forecast levels of £102bn – while the travel and tourism industry’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) may decrease by up to 1.5 per cent, or £1.9bn.
WTTC president, Jean-Claude Baumgarten, said: “Assuming that no further events take place, it is expected that the impact of the London bombing, much like that realised by the Madrid and Bali bombings, will continue into 2006, but will have completely dissipated by 2007.
According to Deloitte & Touche’s global head of tourism, hospitality and leisure, Alex Kyriakidis, while it is too early to predict the full impact on tourism of last Thursday’s attacks, the comparative recovery period after terrorist events is increasingly getting shorter. He said: “Post-September 11, the recovery period was some 18 months.
“However, in the case of Madrid, hotel occupancies recovered to their pre-attack levels within six months and tourism arrivals to Spain were up 3.4 per cent in 2004, compared with the previous year, with a marginal decline in the second quarter of 2004 of only 0.3 per cent as a result of the attacks.
Chief executive of UKinbound, Stephen Dowd, was equally positive: “This attack was not aimed at tourists, it was aimed at the people of London – commuters – and, in that regard it has some similarities to the attack on Madrid,” he said.
“With London, I believe it is a short-term problem and we are very confident London will bounce back very quickly. I think the British people have shown the terrorists that they are determined not to let them wreck their lives. “
“To date, we’re looking at very few cancellations, particularly from markets such as North America which have traditionally been more nervous than others.
The hospitality sector was rocked by a number of media reports alleging that certain hotel groups had tripled room prices as people stranded in London in the aftermath of the bombings sought accommodation.
A spokesperson for Premier Travel Inns, which was named in one newspaper report, said: “We would like to confirm that Premier Travel Inn follows a policy of consistent pricing. We do not raise prices in response to incidents like those experienced on 7 July and prices at Premier’s 3,000 central London rooms were unchanged that night.
“Our primary concern was to look after guests and help those affected by the situation.”
Attractions operators also remain confident that the attacks have had a minor impact on their industry.
Echoing the sentiments of many within the attractions sector, a spokesperson for the Tussauds Group said: “Thursday 7 July was a tragic day for those many people directly impacted by the atrocity, their families, and London as a whole.
“But, we hope and believe, that while there will of course be some impact on all London businesses and leisure attractions, this will be short term.
“In Madame Tussauds’ case, as might be imagined, we experienced a drop in expected visitor numbers last Thursday and Friday, but this improved greatly over the weekend, and we are confident that numbers will recover quickly.”
Robin Broke, director of the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions (ALVA) said: “It’s business as usual. Clearly, Britain is as well placed as any country to prevent or manage terrorist attacks.
“We hope all potential tourists will recognise this and not be deflected from their plans to live life – and visit attractions.”
The bombings on 7 July happened during the morning rush hour in Edgware Road, Kings Cross, Liverpool Street, Russell Square, Aldgate East and Moorgate underground stations and on a bus in Tavistock Square.
