Cost of London riots to business and Olympics tourism “unquantifiable”

Gratuitous rioting and looting has plagued Britain’s streets for three days, with hundreds of masked youths physically damaging, raiding and in some cases setting fire to high street businesses in London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Bristol and Nottingham.

While the riots had calmed in London by yesterday evening, a fresh bout broke out in Manchester, causing concerns that the trouble is not yet over for Britain.

While the Association of British Insurers believe the total cost to insurance companies could reach ‘tens of millions of pounds’, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) says it is too early to start counting the damage.

Sarah Cordey, spokesperson for the BRC, said the long term cost of the rioting is difficult to quantify.

“How you measure the cost depends on what you’re counting,” she said. “There’s the short term cost in terms of fixing vandalism and dealing with property that’s been stolen, and there’s the cost of lost business where shops have decided to close because they are worried about their own security, but we are more concerned about the long term cost to businesses that have been damaged or attacked in the riots that will never open again.”

She added that those businesses already struggling due to prevailing economic conditions could now falter.

“It’s a difficult time for retail and for those businesses that were carefully balancing their books, an incident like this could push them over the edge from being a surviving business to sadly a failed one.

“The very significant cost is the danger that in six months’ time we have a higher number of vacant premises and a generally wrecked high street area in the places where the protests have been happening.

“Individual businesses that have been attacked are themselves still working out their losses. It’s far too soon to be putting a number on it. We are more concerned about making sure that the trouble, which died out in London last night but broke out elsewhere, stops happening before we start counting up the cost.”

Cost to London Olympics tourism​

Concerns have been raised over the security and safety measures put in place for the 2012 London Olympic Games in less than a year’s time, and while the organising committee LOCOG and the Department for Media, Culture and Sport claim they have ‘every confidence in security planning’, countries around the world have portrayed London as ‘unsafe’.

A news report on China’s state-run television said: “The riots have not only seriously hurt London’s image but they have also raised doubts and worries about the safety measures taken for the London Olympics.”

Another report in the Detroit Free Press read: “The real damage to the nation may be less to property and more to image… Television reports of burning buildings and looting may damage the nation's carefully built-up tourist image even though popular tourist attractions are not the target of the rioting.”

Such publicity could mean those considering coming to the UK for the Olympic Games, think twice.

But tourism agency VisitBritain played down the result of negative global publicity: “We recognise that Britain has a strong and positive image overseas and hope that these incidents will be short-lived and that tourism will show its customary resilience. Perceptions of Britain are formed over many decades, if not centuries, and we believe these incidents are not likely to have a long-lasting effect. We will continue to monitor the situation,” a spokesperson said.

On-going tourism​

VisitBritain also claimed it is too early to count the cost the rioting has had on British tourism as a whole, drawing attention to the fact no key visitor attractions had been affected during the trouble.

“It is important to recognise that these isolated incidents are occurring away from key visitor attractions around the UK. Transport services, including inbound flights, are all running a good service and major tourist attractions across London and the rest of Britain remain open and unaffected, meaning international visitors can continue to enjoy the UK as per usual.

“While we will continue to monitor the situation, it is still too early to anticipate the effect on inbound tourism to Britain. Britain has a strong and positive image overseas and we hope these incidents will be short-lived and that tourism will show its customary resilience.”