Tourism industry prays for sun

On a sun-kissed Sunday afternoon, the tourists poured into the childhood home of Henry VIII's ill-fated wife Ann Boleyn.

Receipts at Hever Castle are up this year and, as long as the rain holds off, they could be in for a good summer as the British carefully count their dwindling pounds in the economic downturn.

"The spend per head is good. If the sun shines, people are desperate to get out," said Ann Watt, spokeswoman at the historic castle where Ann Boleyn first met the Tudor King. Henry eventually spurned Anne and she was executed.

"We have also seen a big increase in the German market," Watt said. "But everything does hinge on the weather."

That cautiously optimistic message is echoed across Britain's 85 billion pound tourist industry which employs 2.1 million people.

With fuel and energy costs soaring and house prices plummeting, stay-at-home tourism could enjoy a seasonal boost.

"British people may be more likely to look at the option of a British domestic holiday. That is what we are hearing from the industry," said Elliott Frisby from Visit Britain, the national tourist agency. "The potential is there with the credit crunch."

But attracting visitors from abroad could be an uphill climb.

"Inbound figures are flat. It is increasingly hard to encourage overseas people to travel anywhere at the moment," Frisby told Reuters.

Spending is down one percent -- 9.8 million visitors have spent 4.3 billion pounds. Visitor numbers are dipping from North America and the core European Union countries.

"The weak dollar is hurting us. North Americans are now taking more trips in Asia as well as cruise holidays, which are a huge boom out of America. They don't have to factor in the exchange rate," he said.

But the notoriously unpredictable weather could torpedo a good season.

Rebecca Milton of English Heritage, which runs 400 sites around the country, warned: "It has been a good year but we are cautious about summer predictions because of the economic downturn. The weather could also be very changeable."

Its premier site is Stonehenge, which attracted just under one million visitors last year. She expects that figure to remain constant in 2008.

But the outlook remains challenging.

"We are cautious because the credit crunch will have an impact. A lot of our market is families and they are finding it quite tough financially," she said.