New VisitBritain CEO Wants Visitors to Explore Beyond London

25.08.2023 - 13:57 / skift.com / Patricia Yates / London

The United Kingdom is poised for a tourism boom in 2023, a welcome development for a country that has struggled to make a complete recovery from the pandemic. And VisitBritain CEO Patricia Yates has big plans to boost visitor numbers even more, especially outside of popular destinations like London and Oxford.

Skift spoke to Yates during her recent visit to New York City. Yates, who previously worked as VisitBritain’s strategy and communications director before being named CEO in 2022, touched on the country’s tourism rebound, VisitBritain’s aim to promote lesser known destinations and challenges the organization faces. The comments have been edited for length and clarity.

Skift: Your numbers indicate overseas visitor spending in the UK for 2023 forecasted at $35.8 billion (£29.5 billion), up 4 percent from the all-time spending high of $34.5 (£28.4 billion) in 2019. It is also predicted that there will be 35.1 million inbound visits to the UK, 86 percent of 2019 levels. Are you surprised visitation came back as quickly as it did? 

Patricia Yates: These are robust numbers. In total, visitor numbers up to around 90 percent. I should say, though, America is just bucking all the trends. America was up 40 percent by value last year, let alone this year. And part of the reason I’m in New York is to sort of test the temperature in America. Is this a post-Covid blip? Are we going to see this continue?     

And I have to say, the mood I have seen in the room is that this is here to stay, and people are having their best year. Plus, we have new hotels coming in. We have so much five-star investment going into London — Raffles, Rosewood, Waldorf Astoria, and the Peninsula to name a few. 

Britain has a great story to tell about luxury because we have history and heritage. But we are also irreverent, and there’s that modern twist, “How do you interpret luxury in the new age?”

Skift: Are these numbers on the higher side due to inflationary pricing? Was there an uptick due to the pound weakening to the dollar?

Yates: We did see an uptick when the pound weakened against the dollar. And people do tend to budget in their own currency when they travel. But we are also seeing that people are spending more and staying longer, and that’s a really good trend to see because we’re trying to drive regional spread. We know that people want an experience in travel, they want to really get under the skin of a destination, and that means taking a little more time, going to different destinations, taking time to eat in the restaurants, seeing the local producers, talking to local people, going to the local pub, and really get to know what a local area is like. 

Skift: Do you feel that’s more a trend post-Covid, that people want