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Tourism in the UK
Think about it
The UK offers fantastic range of tourist attractions and as a result earns a good amount of GDP from tourism. The UK is also a highly accessible place; it has a huge number of International Airports such as Heathrow and Newcastle International, an extensive road network, the Channel Tunnel and a (creaking) rail network.  This means that lots of international tourists can join the healthy number of domestic UK tourists.

The types of tourism that occur are;
Beach tourism - on the rare occasions that the UK is hot our beach resorts kick into action - from Blackpool in the North West to Newquay in the South.
Mountain and hill tourism - the north of England, North Wales and Scotland offer fantastic mountain scenery from our glacial past - the Lake District National Park benefits from this. 
City Breaks - huge cities such as Newcastle and London offer a huge variety of activities, and most museums are free.  London alone boasts the Imperial war museum, the National Portrait Gallery, the London Eye (the UK's most visited attraction with 3.7 million revolving visitors each year).
Activity tourism - the UK offers a range of adventurous activities such as GoApe, white water rafting, rock climbing and pot holing. 
Cultural Tourism -
the UK offers lots of architectural delights, museums, history and world renowned sites (e.g. Stone Henge).
Ecological tourism - The UK has a range of protected environments, including SSSIs (sites of Special Scientific Interest) and National Parks.  These have an emphasis on sustainability and conservation but are under pressure from visitor numbers.


All of these have contributed to the UK being a highly visited country.  In the past nearly all UK tourism was domestic - the wealthy of the UK holidaying in the UK.  During the 1950s to early 1970s the booming UK economy allowed companies to give their employees more time off and the employees had more disposable income to spend. However, a lot of our coastal resorts are now in decline, as wealthy people prefer to holiday abroad.
Try this exercise about tourism in the UK
Using the videos below consider what can you do as a tourist in the UK and the North
Play the scatter game at the base of the page

The UK is the sixth most visited country in the World and received $30billion of international tourist wealth in 2009. Including domestic tourism, tourism was worth £115.4 billion to the UK economy once the direct and indirect impacts were taken into account. Indeed, 2.645 million people in the UK earn their money from  tourism in 2009.
Source.
 
 

 

Using the videos above - what can you do as a tourist in the UK and the North East of England?East?

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