Several online travel sites have seen a jump in queries from Americans about travel to the United Kingdom since it voted to leave the European Union, a sign that the Brexit vote and the resulting drop in the value of the pound currency may spur US visits to Britain, Reuters reported.
One site found that more Britons were also asking about flights to the United States.
Travel agents, hotel chains and airlines say it is too early to tell if the vote has impacted bookings. Financial analysts at the Buckingham Research Group had predicted a Brexit would slow the British economy and airline sales. But some US travel agents are advising travellers to book UK trips now and expect to see a bump in bookings with time.
On June 24, the day after Britain voted to leave the European Union, Priceline Group’s Kayak said it saw a 54 percent increase in US searches exploring fares to the United Kingdom compared to other Fridays in the month of June.
Flight searches from the UK for US travel also rose 46 percent, according to Kayak.
“Americans may want to secure a great fare, while British may be worried that higher fares will soon hit the market,” said Billy Sanez, vice president of marketing and communications at FareCompare.com, which analyses airfares, when shown the Kayak data.
Search site Travelzoo saw a 35.3 percent increase in travel searches from the US to the UK from June 24 to June 27. StudentUniverse, a travel booking site popular among young people, saw searches for flights from the US to the UK double from a year ago. It did not show a change in UK-based searches for U.S. trips.
A number of U.S. travel agents said they expected demand for British travel to emerge, but few had seen it yet.
More visitors will come to Britain and Europe if the currencies continue to suffer, said George Hobica, founder of Airfarewatchdog.com, a low airfare alert site that covers all airlines. Longer term, if the British economy slows, “everything will be cheaper.”