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2012 saw 31.1 million overseas visitors come to the UK and 57.7 million domestic holidays taken by GB residents1. However, precise understanding of tourism's economic and environmental impact, particularly at local and regional levels, has historically been weak. Cardiff Business School's (CBS) Welsh Economy Research Unit (WERU) has significantly contributed to developing methodologies to quantify tourism's socio-economic impact at different scales. Their development of the first Tourism Satellite Account for the UK has informed the way national and international agencies conceptualise and measure tourism impacts. Researchers then developed a Tourism Impact Model to assess the impact of new facilities and infrastructure, and of large sporting and cultural events. This has helped event organisers and sponsors, including the Welsh Government, understand how to optimise value for money whilst minimising undesirable environmental impacts.
The University of Surrey has a longstanding reputation in the world of tourism demand modelling and forecasting research. The continuous advancements and innovations in forecasting methodologies have been widely applied by international organisations, government agencies and tourism-related enterprises and so contributed to "evidence based policy/strategy movement".
This research has provided the scientific foundation for more effective policy making, strategic planning and operation management particularly in terms of planning investments in visitor infrastructure, human resource management, marketing resource allocation and new product development. In addition, the risks of project failures are minimised through improved understanding of tourism demand.
Dr Mark Hampton's research informs tourism policy for the world's 40 small island developing states (SIDS) and poor coastal communities. He generates data that challenge conventional wisdom about the value of large scale tourism for these fragile economies. His findings identify niche tourism as a more sustainable basis for economic growth. The Commonwealth, World Bank and individual governments, as well as numerous other NGOs and industry associations, are amongst those who draw upon Hampton's research findings in order to help vulnerable states formulate effective policies and develop appropriate tourism initiatives.
Research at the University of Surrey, has assisted disabled people and low-income groups to access tourism, a significant non-material aspect of well-being. This was achieved by influencing policy and policy recommendations in the UK, Belgium and the EU and by influencing behaviour, action and policy of either demand or supply:
Researchers at the University of Brighton have changed national tourism policy and workforce training practices in African countries. Working with international organisations, including the World Bank and UN agencies, the underpinning research has identified approaches for developing capacity and skills in the tourism workforce. As a consequence, the Nigerian Board of Technical Education redesigned the national curriculum for leisure, tourism and hospitality; the Namibia Tourism Board introduced customer service skills training; government guidelines for ecotourism development were produced in West Africa. In the Gambia the research led to the Ministry of Tourism and Culture developing service standards and establishing the €2.7m Gambia Tourism and Hospitability Institute.
This case study describes impacts on the professional practice of transport appraisal, and on investment planning at national and local levels, arising from an approach developed over the period 2005-2013 to estimate the Wider Economic Impacts (WEIs) of transport investments. The research instigated an important reform of the UK approach to Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) and provided key empirical evidence that has been formally incorporated in the UK Department for Transport (DfT) web based CBA guidance (WebTAG) since 2009. Governments and public authorities throughout the world subsequently adopted the models and techniques proposed as decision support tools for infrastructure investment and planning. Since 2007 Imperial staff and their industrial collaborators have applied the approach to approximately 150 Billion US Dollars of international transport investment, and its use and impact are now widespread globally. It is now a standard textbook approach for assessing the WEIs of transport investment. Recent applications of the approach in the UK include the official economic evaluations of CrossRail (2010) and High Speed 2 (2010, 2012).