LONDON (dpa-AFX) – According to travel providers, Great Britain has become a less popular holiday destination for German and French tourists after Brexit. “The fact that EU citizens now need a passport to travel to the UK has proved a deterrent, particularly for school groups because of the extra costs and red tape,” Joss Croft of UKinbound tourism association told the Observer Sunday newspaper.
Because of Brexit, EU citizens have only been able to enter the United Kingdom with a passport since October 2021. According to surveys, however, more than half of Germans do not have a passport at all. Great Britain left the European Union at the end of January 2020, but transitional periods still applied after that.
Hayley Beer-Gamage, which organizes tours through the English county of Oxfordshire, says it has only about half the number of bookings from German and French groups compared to the level before Brexit and the pandemic.
According to the Observer, the ferry operator Brittanny Ferries, which connects Great Britain with France, among other things, also stated that it only had around 155,000 passengers coming into the country on board last year, while there were still 338,000 in 2019.
Survey data from the Visit Britain tourism association and the Anholt Ipsos Nation Brand Index market research institute also show the island’s declining appeal: while Germans still considered Great Britain the seventh best travel destination in the 2016 survey, the United Kingdom was only ranked number 7 in the same survey in 2022 16
“Many Europeans just have a less positive image of some aspects of Britain now,” David Edwards of travel consultancy Scattered Clouds told The Observer. “They are a very important market. The Germans in particular visit parts of Great Britain where others do not travel, such as Devon and Cornwall.”/swe/DP/he