Football’s influential role in boosting Britain’s tourism sector

The World Cup is over, the champions have been anointed, the king crowned. For the latest updates, follow us on Twitter @ArabNewsSport The celebrations from Argentina’s stunning victory over France may still be raging on in Buenos Aires, but club football waits for no one.
On Monday, the English Premier League returns to action after a six-week break, an unprecedented mid-season sabbatical thanks to the first-ever wintertime World Cup in Qatar. Football supporters from the GCC and the wider Middle East spectacularly rose to the occasion at the World Cup, and while many will now get back to domestic matters, a good number will revert to following the fortunes of the Manchester clubs, Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea, Tottenham and the team threatening to crash the “Big Six” party, Newcastle United. Throughout Qatar 2022, VisitBritain took the opportunity to promote “Destination Britain” and inspire travel from the GCC during the World Cup and beyond, for the return of Premier League action.It is not, however, a new trend. The GCC is Britain’s second-most valuable inbound market when all the GCC countries are combined: there were 1.2 million trips .
from the Gulf nations to the UK in 2019, with these visitors spending $3.14 billion (£2.6 billion).
“The GCC is a very important tourism market for Britain,” said VisitBritain’s Interim Deputy Director Carol Maddison. “With the UK Government’s The Garden of GREAT and program of events for the World Cup we have a timely and valuable opportunity to highlight our outstanding tourism offer and the amazing experiences that GCC visitors — including football fans — can only have in Britain.” With football taking center-stage, VisitBritain highlights Britain’s standing as the “home of football” across its digital and social channels, inspiring visitors to explore its vibrant football cities and associated attractions and experiences.While London has historically been a favored destination for many GCC travelers, more cities across the country have been attracting visitors, in many cases thanks to their football clubs and the rising popularity of the Premier League since its inception in 1992. The likes of Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal have huge fanbases in the region, as they do around the world, while Manchester City, and more recently Newcastle, have the benefit of being, respectively, UAE- and Saudi-owned, as they look to capture a bigger share of the supporter market.Helped by a significant choice of regional carriers and relatively comfortable flight times (Riyadh or Dubai to London takes just over seven hours), many football fans now see it as a viable option to build their holidays around watching football matches across Britain and mainland Europe. Research by VisitBritain demonstrates the pivotal role that football increasingly plays in driving tourism to the UK.In 2019, 1.5 million visits to the UK included watching a live football match, up 66 percent compared to 2011 when there were 909,000 visits, with football taking the top spot that year as the most popular live sporting event for international visitors.Those visitors who attended football matches spent $1.7 billion (£1.4 billion) across the UK in total, up 84 percent on the $895 million (£742 million) spent in 2011 when the research was last conducted.