Football tourism: a £1.4bn economic impact for the UK
VisitBritain research has revealed the importance of football in driving inbound tourism to the UK and in boosting visitor spending.
The tourism body’s Football Tourism in the UK report published on 20 October found that overseas visitors who went to a football match spent £1.4bn across the UK in total during their trip in 2019, up 84% on the £742m spent in 2011 when the research was last conducted. There were 1.5 million visits to the UK in 2019 that included watching a live football match, up 66% compared to 2011 when there were 909,000 visits.
Visitors who attended a football match also spent more and stayed longer, spending £909 per visit on average, 31% more than the global visitor average of £696 in 2019, and staying ten nights compared to seven.
It is not just leisure visi...