At last! A dividend from Kwasi Kwarteng’s otherwise catastrophic mini-Budget just over a year ago.
Figures today from the Office for National Statistics show Americans pouring into London in near record numbers during the April to June quarter.
They’re spending big too. Over the three months, visitors from North America (let us not forget the Canadians) splurged £1.339billion on the capital’s hotels, restaurants, shops and attractions, close to double the £797 million of the pre-pandemic second quarter of 2019.
The hapless former chancellor must take some of the credit for this, though it falls very much into the category of “unintended consequences”.
When Liz Truss’s appointee made his now notorious speech he managed to crash a wide variety of financial markets, the pound being among them. When sterling touched its all-time low of $1.035 in September last year it gave Americans the excuse they needed to dig out those refund coupons they received in exchange for cancelled trips during the pandemic and book to visit old London town.
Kwasi’s loss (he was sacked by Truss three weeks afterwards) was very much London’s gain.
It could have been even better. One of the flurry of unfunded tax cuts revealed by the ex-chancellor that day was the restoration of tax free shopping for foreign tourists. Sadly that did not survive the appointment of Jeremy Hunt as a safe pair of hands replacement.
o while London has been humming with tourist spending this year, it probably lost out to Paris and Milan. But let us not be churlish. London’s hospitality and tourism bosses should be raising a glass to Kwarteng’s cunning plan tonight.
It may have nearly wrecked the British economy and brought mortgage misery to millions... but at least the hotels are full.
