Sports Tourism Proves to Be Popular for Britain

Although the England football team may have underachieved at the World Cup, it still seems that the nation’s most popular tourism industry is sports tourism. In fact, the nation’s top sporting events, like the Premier League and Wimbledon, tend to attract some 3 million international visitors and over £2 billion in revenue, according to some new figures just released by VisitBritain.

Great British sporting events like Wimbledon are major overseas boosts to the UK economy. Even other events like the London Marathon and Yorkshire’s Three Peaks Hike are known to bring in their fair share of overseas visitors.

Apparently some 3 million sports enthusiasts account for about 14 percent or more of all the international tourists that come to the UK. These same people spent about £2.3 billion in 2008. Most of these people, on average, spend about £900 per trip. This amount of money is almost double what other tourists that come to the UK spend. Also, the sports tourism industry is said to support some 50,000 jobs across the country.

VisitBritian collated data from surveys of 50,000 international travelers at UK ports and airports by the Office for National Statistics. These survey’s highlighted the strength of international participation in sports in some form. This includes playing golf to cross country running and marathons

VisitBritain chief executive Sandie Dawe said that she was encouraged by these new figures, as they suggest a growing popularity for British sports in the build up to the Olympics. She said that millions of people are traveling to watch their world class events and participate in their famous sporting traditions.