At Last, The UK Comes Out Of The Recession

Now that was a headline that we at FSE didn’t wake up expecting to read last week.

According to national statistics, the UK economy has shown a 1% growth between the 3 month period between July and September. Now it has to be said that this has been significantly helped by the roaring success that was this year’s Olympics, but reports were saying that the ticket sales only equated to 0.2% of this 1% figure. So where did the rest of the growth come from? The additional growth may have originated from areas that wouldn’t immediately spring to mind when considering what the Olympics brought to the UK:

Hotels     

If any of you tried to book a night away or a stay in a hotel in the run up to the Olympics, it’s likely they would have all been pre-booked, especially the ones close to any of the many events that took place all over the country. If you did find a free room you would have found it was a lot more expensive than normal, too. Having all these hotels fully booked at such premium rates meant that the hotel industry had a significant boost in revenue at an important time of year.

Local Businesses & Transport

Having all these people staying in hotels meant that the local businesses would also have been busier than normal. Restaurants, shops and tourist attractions would have seen a significant rise in custom. Here’s something I never personally considered, though – although the Olympics was the primary reason people came to this country, we actually live in a great country with a capital that boasts a huge range of interesting attractions. While they were in London, tourists would have taken the opportunity to visit the notorious Madame Tussauds, take a look around Oxford Street, or even drop past Buckingham Palace to try and catch sight of the Queen (especially after her opening ceremony stunt!).

All these extra people in the region would have needed to get from A to B, so this taxi drivers and minicab companies saw a huge rise in business, as did the public transport companies (and, it has to be said, they were surprisingly well prepared for the influx of tourists). Some of these businesses would have had to draft in extra staff, too, which leads us nicely on to my next point.

Employment   

The Olympics helped create thousands of jobs, not just on the sites where the actual events were held. The businesses affected by all these visitors would have increased their staff levels, and the more people there are employed, the more money there is to spend, which obviously helps to stimulate the economy and keep it going.

The bottom line is that not only were the Olympics an amazing experience for the participants, the spectators and everyone who was involved, but it was a massive and much-needed boost for our economy!

That said, the fact that we are out of recession means we, as well as our government, are all going to have to work hard to make that sure that our country doesn’t fall back into it. This is where the real work starts. If the legacy left by the Games continues to inspire our workforce and we all work hard to keep our heads above water, then I have no doubt the businesses in this country will become larger, stronger and much more profitable.

What’s this got to do with SEO, I hear you ask? Well, we at Freelance SEO Essex believe that this restored confidence will lead to companies hunting for more ways to market their businesses. And what better advertising platform is bigger and more influential than the web? We’re optimistic that in the next couple of years, growing companies will have more faith in digital marketing than ever before!