The inbound tourism industry association for the UK, UKinbound, has revealed visitor arrival and forward booking figures for July, showing a fall in visitors after the 7 July bombings, but a rapid recovery. However, the association believes the subsequent attacks on 21 July will have caused more longer term damage to the industry.

Visitor arrivals in July were down 7.4 per cent on 2004 and forward bookings were down 9.3 per cent.

“While this loss of inbound business may seem relatively low in comparison to the scale of the attacks, it seems certain that August, traditionally the busiest month for overseas visitors, has been severely affected and the repercussions could last well into the autumn as many consumers continue to defer travelling to the UK,” said UKinbound chief executive Stephen Dowd.

“We now have a difficult and delicate task in attracting these potential visitors back to the UK in the face of continued media coverage and political grandstanding both at home and abroad. Moreover, the inexorable rise in oil prices, greatly exacerbated by Hurricane Katrina, has added cost into every part of the tourism supply chain and is eroding our competitiveness, putting pressure on prices.

“With other destinations also suffering, there is a danger that reactive and unrealistic discounting could undermine a sustainable recovery,” he said.

The organisation predicts that trading conditions will remain tough probably until early next year, with visitor numbers only slightly up on 2004. Details: www.ukinbound.org