The report was prepared by Tourism Economics for the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and released in May 2021.

Research (undertaken in March 2021) was “procured by DCMS for the purpose of gaining a better understanding of the future landscape of recovery in the tourism and travel sector”. 

The report looks at both domestic and inbound travel, with the backdrop of world macroeconomic forecasts.  Due to the uncertainty over tourism and travel during the pandemic, three illustrative scenarios have been created to account for the range of uncertainty inherent in such a dynamic situation.

It says a large degree of uncertainty exists around employment impacts during the current crisis, due to labour hoarding and the furlough scheme.  In 2020, an estimated 1.1 million travel and tourism jobs were cumulatively at risk as a result of the reduced travel activity. Not all of these jobs will be lost but they are all vulnerable to persistent weak demand.

Nonetheless, the report says domestic demand should remain the key driver of overall UK demand in the near-term. The forecasts project that domestic travel will remain 46% below 2019 levels in 2021, but recover fully by 2023 in the baseline scenario. (The Government’s Tourism Recovery Plan aims to accelerate this recovery, rebuilding it by the end of 2022.)

You can access UK Tourism Scenario Forecasts here.

• Note: The findings are based on the most relevant data available. Where possible, assumptions in the modelling have been aligned with the reopening roadmap announced by the Prime Minister on 22 February 2021.
• Although commissioned by DCMS, these are independent forecasts and not to be treated as official government statistics.