Nice places to live and work are usually also nice places to visit. We ignore at our peril the fact that visitors from near and far can help fuel the virtuous circle of demand, provision and investment, as much, if at times, not more than the resident population itself. Tourism’s wider social and economic roles, particularly as a tool in regeneration, have now become more apparent to Government at all levels. Consequently, national, regional and local government are far more willing to invest into the core product and the necessary tourism support infrastructure that help ensure that we all gain the maximum advantages from a booming domestic tourism market and the associated healthy local visitor economy surrounding it. The public sector’s display of confidence in turn generates even greater private sector confidence, sparking serious commercial investment. Tourism is now rightly regarded as a “proper industry” and an industry with significant potential to bring additional domestic and international tourism growth.

Owing to changes in the UK Tourism Survey (UKTS) methodology it is difficult to make direct comparisons with the figures for previous years, however, the headline figures for the domestic British market in 2006 still remain impressive. UK residents took 79.2 million domestic holidays in the UK in 2006, spending £13.6 billion. England accounted for 62.2 million of these holidays and £10.3 billion of the spend. In Wales the equivalent figures were 7.3 million holidays and £1.2 billion of the total spend, and in Scotland, 8.5 million holidays, generating £2.8 billion. More UKTS data can be found on the VisitBritain site www.tourismtrade.org.uk.
(Source: UKTS 2006; as at January 2008 the most up to date full year data available.)

Within this socially and economically vital industry, the biggest single element is the coastal sector, including within it the larger traditional seaside resorts and popular rural coastal destinations. Their contribution to the national tourism volume and value figures are impressive and worthy of individual note:
In 2006 UK residents took 27.1 million seaside trips. This figure includes trips visiting friends and relatives, business and conference trips and other non-“holiday” staying trips. Within the 27.1 million figure, 22.5 million trips were made for seaside holidays, generating a tourism spend of £4.2 billion. England accounted for 17.0 million of these seaside holidays and £3.3 billion of the total spend. In Wales the equivalent figures were 3.6 million seaside holidays and £0.6 billion spend and in Scotland 1.4 million seaside holidays generating £0.29 billion. As a proportion of all holidays in England by UK residents, seaside holidays accounted for 32% of all holiday trips, 35% of all nights and 32% of all spend. In Wales, coastal holidays accounted for an even more impressive 49% of all holiday trips, 54% of all holiday nights and 51% of all holiday spend. In Scotland, because of the different product, coastal holidays accounted for a smaller but, nevertheless, important 17% of all holiday trips, 18% of all holiday nights and 13% of all holiday expenditure.
(Source: UKTS 2006.)

Of the top 10 towns and cities visited for one or more night’s stay in 2006, four were coastal resorts, including Scarborough, Skegness and Bournemouth. Blackpool, the biggest and most popular resort town came second only to London, with 1.5 million overnight holiday trips, beating iconic historic destinations like Edinburgh and York and the newly fashionable, big city destinations like Glasgow, Manchester and Birmingham.
(Source UKTS 2006)
In addition to these overnight trips, there were almost 270 million day visits made to the British coast, generating a further £3.1 billion spend. On average each trip was of 3.9 hours with an average party size of 3.5 people. However, almost 1 in 4 (24%) of all seaside trips were made by people travelling by themselves. Of all these almost 270m seaside day trips, 200m seaside day trips were taken in England, generating a spend of £2.5 billion. There were 25m seaside day trips taken in Wales with a spend of £0.2 billion and 42m seaside day trips in Scotland, generating £0.3 billion.
(Source: UK Day Visits Survey 2002-03, the latest available day trip data).

Other interesting facts relating to the coastal sector are:

Britain is made up of 6,100 islands, of which 291 are inhabited. England and Wales, including their islands, have a coastline of 3240 miles (5214km). Scotland and its islands have a coastline of 5800 miles (9335km). Great Britain has a coastline of 9040 miles (14,549km). There are 5 coastal National Parks and 26 coastal areas of outstanding natural beauty in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. England and Wales have 45 Heritage Coasts measuring 950 miles (1,520km) – Scotland has no Heritage Coasts. The National Trust owns 555 miles (888 km) of coastline in Britain and 74% of their coastline is designated Heritage Coast. The adult resident population of the 43 principal seaside resort towns in England, Scotland and Wales totals 3.1 million, marginally more than the total population of Wales (2.9 million). The adult resident population of working age in the same 43 principal resorts was some 366,000 greater in 2001 than it was in heyday of traditional seaside resort holidays of 1971. Over the same period, the total number of jobs available in these towns had also increased by a massive 320,000.

A record 144 resort beaches were awarded the European Blue Flag in June 2007, 8 more than in 2006. Blue Flags are not available to rural beaches, however, a new award to marinas was introduced in 1998 when 6 flags were awarded. In 2007 a total of 11 marinas in the UK had the Blue Flag. Details of the 2008 awards can be accessed at www.blueflag.org/blueflag. Seaside Awards continues to be awarded in Scotland and Wales and a new Quality Coast Award, replacing the resort and rural Seaside Award in England, was adopted in 2007.

Facts and figures on other key market segments including rural tourism, market towns, major pay for entry and free entry attractions and city-based tourism are available via www.tourismtrade.org.uk