According to the preliminary data just released by the UK Office for National Statistics (ONS), the impact of the June 23, 2016 vote in which Britons voted to leave the European Union has hardly had a major, measurable impact. The ONS numbers, as we’ve prepared in tabular form below, show that UK travel to the UK fell by just 5 percent for the month of July—the latest month for which data are available and the month in which the immediate impact was thought to be the greatest—vs. July 2015. And, in spite of the fall-off, departures for North America year-to-date are running more than 7 percent ahead of arrivals for the same period last year.
At NAJ-sponsored discussion salons three weeks ago that were attended by two dozen U.S. tour and travel industry professionals from receptive tour operator companies and suppliers, the near unanimous opinion was that Brexit was having little impact on business booked for the remainder of 2016.
In fact, UK long-haul travel is on pace to reach its highest annual number of outbound travelers for the past 30 years. Click on this link:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/leisureandtourism/timeseries/gmax/ott
As well, preliminary data previously released by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Travel and Tourism Office indicates that UK arrivals in the USA are on pace to exceed five million this year—the first time it has ever done so.
