July 18, 2005
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Yannis Kontos/Polaris, for The New York
Times
Yannis Kontos/Polaris, for The New York Times
Some of the visitors fascinated by the Thames River, and the history that surrounds it, took a boat ride Sunday. The Tower Bridge is in the distance
Yannis Kontos/Polaris, for The New York Times
The bombing of trains and buses in London did not deter this busload of casually attired tourists from getting a look at the House of Commons.
Tourism slowed briefly in London after the terrorist bombings, but has returned to normal levels.
July 12, 2005
Attacks Create Only a Brief Pause in the Tourist Swarm to London
By HEATHER TIMMONS
LONDON, July 11 – Hoping to reassure London visitors in the wake of last week’s attacks on trains and buses, the deputy chief constable of the British Transport Police, Andrew Trotter, declared the city “open for business” over the weekend.
By some measures, it seemed that he really did not need to make the announcement.
After a dip on Friday, attendance at London tourist attractions like the National Gallery and Madame Tussaud’s wax museum soon returned to normal levels. Warm and sunny weather drew crowds to the galleries, and Thames River boats and top-class hotels were mostly filled.
Tour operators are reporting few or no cancellations, and some even said Monday that they had received more calls than usual about booking trips to London since Thursday’s attacks, particularly from Americans eager to turn their sympathy into something tangible.
To be sure, this is peak tourist season. Still, the quick bounce back for much of London’s tourist industry may signal a greater shift in the way that travelers, especially Americans, view the world nearly four years after the terrorist attacks of September 2001 ground the tourism industry to a halt, visitors and tourism industry professionals say.
“People are more resigned to the existence of terrorism, and in turn are more conditioned to moving forward with their normal lives,” said Hank Phillips, president of the National Tour Association, which represents 600 United States tour companies. None of his members have reported cancellations of London trips, he said.
This weekend, crowds were so thick on the north side of Westminster Bridge, near the Houses of Parliament, that bottlenecks formed at the crosswalks.
Couples, families and school groups from around the world, lugging video cameras, water bottles and fold-out maps, pushed past honey-roasted nut peddlers and kiosks with postcards of the royal family and Union Jack T-shirts.
The visitors posed in front of Big Ben, then clambered onto boats that cruise between the bridge and the Tower of London, or formed lines to board the London Eye, the 450-foot observation wheel that looms over the river.
Some said they had considered canceling their trips after Thursday’s events, but then rejected the idea. “We said a few prayers, and then said ‘Let’s go,’ ” said Mark Jackson, a 42-year-old conferencing executive from Birmingham, Ala., who was cruising the Thames in a sightseeing boat with his wife, mother-in-law and sons (one sporting a Shrek mask).
The family thought: “You want to stop us? Forget it,” Mr. Jackson said. Still, “I can tell you blindfolded where the American Embassy is,” he said.
Britain’s booming tourism business brings in revenue of £74 billion a year ($130 billion). Tourism accounts directly for 7 percent of London’s jobs, according to VisitBritain, and 42,000 visitors a day stream into London, about one in five of them from the United States. Other industries are heavily dependent on tourism – for example, a third of the city’s theater tickets are purchased by visitors.
John Boon, group tour manager at JAC Travel in London, said Monday that since the attacks last week, he had received 20 or 30 more calls than normal from Americans hoping to visit London.
“British people went to the United States soon after the attacks there,” Mr. Boon said, and he thinks the Americans are returning the favor.
London has also become an increasingly popular destination for visitors from the east. Russian restaurants and Russian-speaking clerks in designer-clothing shops are cropping up throughout West London, while European budget airlines are bringing new tourists on their return flights. London has just received “approved designation status” from China, which means that Chinese citizens can easily obtain visas for Britain.
They may have to battle the Americans for tickets. Sue Hollinger and her son Trent were cruising the Thames on Sunday, with 35 high school students from Pennsylvania in matching sky blue T-shirts. The group, which is spending 19 days in France and England, is part of a program intended to increase American students’ appreciation for foreign cultures.
None of the students were apprehensive about visiting London, although a few parents expressed some concern after the bombings, Mrs. Hollinger said. Fortunately, that day, the group was several hundred miles away.
The attacks “have not dampened our enthusiasm at all” for travel, she added. Instead, her son said, they have given him a greater appreciation for the “courage of the English.”
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