London Looks to Emerging Markets to Stay on Top

The queen of England can still pull in a crowd, judging by the throngs of tourists and locals at Buckingham Palace on her official birthday in June. Because our digs at the newly refurbished InterContinental London Park Lane were just across the street from the palace, we joined the crowd, sharing in its enthusiasm.

It was an impressive spectacle, but are London’s traditional attractions strong enough to maintain the city’s popularity with U.S. travelers?

London is the No. 1 city destination in the world for international travel, according to Visit London, and a study by Oxford Economics predicted that the London 2012 Olympic Games will bring in nearly $4.4 billion for London and about $5.8 billion for the U.K. overall.

That said, many of these new tourists are likely to hail from China, India and Russia, according to Visit London Chief Executive James Bidwell, who noted that “China alone is estimated to have 100 million outbound tourists by 2020.”

Provisional figures from the International Passenger Survey show that nearly 3.6 million Americans visited the U.K. in 2007, down from almost 3.9 million in 2006.

One deterrent for U.S. travelers is clearly the dismal pound-to-dollar exchange rate, roughly 2-to-1 at last count, as well as skyrocketing fuel prices, which are making travel to the city a tough sell for agents, particularly for leisure travelers looking for a getaway that won’t break the bank.

And while conventional wisdom has it that the luxury market is unaffected by the vagaries of the economy, even high-end travelers are feeling the pinch, according to Roland Fasel, general manager of the InterContinental London Park Lane.

The recently signed International Expedited Traveler Initiative between U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Global Entry program and the British registered traveler program is designed to create a bilateral pilot program to ease travel restrictions between the two countries.

The pilot program debuted for U.S. citizens and permanent residents on June 6 at airports in New York, Houston and Washington and will be reciprocal with U.S. citizens traveling to the U.K.

Hotels are getting on the bandwagon by adding interesting activities in easy-to-book, commissionable packages. At the InterContinental London Park Lane, for example, I sampled packages that bundled in everything from new art and vintage clothes to cutting-edge dining and theater.