An investigation into how Brexit has influenced the tourist and their decision to visit Edinburgh

Abstract

On the 23rd of June 2016, the people of the United Kingdom (UK) were faced with the decision to vote to leave or vote to remain (referred to as Brexit, i.e. Britain Exit) in the European union (EU), in the referendum 51.9% of UK citizens voted to leave. As of the 29th of March 2019, the UK will officially depart from the EU. As tourism plays a key role in contributing the British economy, the recent decision by the UK to leave the EU, has raised questions about the future of the British tourism industry. This research identifies how Brexit has influenced the tourist and their decision to visit Edinburgh. This research is deductive and is approached using the quantitative research method. Data was gathered by conducting face to face surveys with respondents being inbound tourists visiting Edinburgh. The researcher used SPSS software to collate and process the results of the surveys. The main findings from this research propose that increased exposure to Brexit in tourist’s local news channels has influenced their decisions to travel to Edinburgh. Overall the attitude of inbound tourists towards Brexit is of a positive or indifferent nature. Furthermore, this research suggests that Brexit could be responsible for the recent boost in tourism in the UK. However, the researcher acknowledges that due to the small sample size of, the data is not representative of the world’s population, however, the researcher surmises that if the research was carried out again with a larger sample, the results would be similar. Notwithstanding this limitation, the research has proven that Brexit has directly and indirectly impacted tourist’s opinions and travel decisions.