Travelling to Britain to become cheaper with Brexit: Experts

New Delhi, June 25 (IANS) Planning to capture a panoramic view of London in your camera or to take a selfie in front of Big Ben? Then it is the right time to visit. Though the global financial markets went into a tizzy after Brexit, the fall in the pound would make travel to Britain cheaper, feel industry stakeholders.

“Brexit has resulted in a big drop in the value of the pound and if this trend remains then we could see a surge in leisure tourism to Britain, as it will become significantly cheaper,” said Sharat Dhall, President of travel portal Yatra.com.

Britain's decision to opt out of the European Union (Brexit) made its currency, pound, weaker.

Dhall added that the drop in the pound's value might result in an increase in students from India choosing Britain as a destination looking at cheaper education facilities.

According to the data available at visitbritain.org, in 2015, the number of visitors to Britain from India were 422,409, who spent around 9.22 million nights and average length of the stay was 21.84 nights. Average spend per visit was around 1,025 pounds.

“The pound has depreciated against the rupee. This would mean that travel to the UK will be cheaper for Indian travellers. This will aid our outbound business for the remainder of the year,” said Anil Khandelwal, Chief Financial Officer, Cox & Kings.

“The development is new and is still to unfold and thus it wouldn’t be ideal to speculate on this right now,” a spokesperson of MakeMyTrip said.

“With the pound dropping, there is a possibility that we will see an increased number of travellers from India to Britain. The long term impact on business travel and trade relations remains to be seen,” he added.

However, the International Air Transport Association said going by the preliminary estimates, the number of UK air passengers could be three-five per cent lower by 2020, driven by the expected downturn in economic activity and the fall in the sterling exchange rate.

At present, travellers need separate visas for Britain and Europe, which is unlikely to change anytime in the near future.

“Currently travellers need separate visas for the United Kingdom and Europe and this is unlikely to change anytime in the foreseeable future,” said Madhavan Menon, Chairman and Managing Director, Thomas Cook (India).