Art fairs and tourism

“London is one of the most visited cities in the world. In terms of international visitor numbers it is comparable with some Far East destinations such as Hong Kong and Singapore but significantly outperforms other European cities“. (Tourism in London By Simon Kyte). It is a city, which combines a sense of history with creativity and a dynamic pop culture. As one of the most cosmopolitan and tolerant capitals in the world today, it attracts a genuine diversity of visitors. (World Cities Culture Forum 2014)

Nowadays, UKs capital plays host to several art fairs almost every month of the year. Some are gallery fairs where all the stands belong to established galleries representing their artists, the others are artist fairs, where the artists represent themselves. Both types attract visitors not only living in the area, but also from all around the world. According to World Cities Culture Forum 2014 also commercially oriented art fairs highly expanded in recent years, including the Frieze Art Fair, which is a major stop on the world’s visual art circuit to tourists and residents.

All art fairs not only promote the cities culture and help to build identity of places where they are being staged, but also help to reduce the impact of the cities seasonality. As already mentioned above, London hosts several art fairs every single month of the year apart from August, which is the month with the highest visitors numbers throughout the year. Although the capital seems busy all year-round, a quarterly data demonstrated by the International Passenger Survey presented by Simon Kyte shows, the differences between each season. „The first quarter of each year tends to have a lower number of trips, a lower number of nights spent in London and a lower spend than any trend series. Trip numbers and spend tend to be higher than trend in the second quarter but the number of nights tends to remain below trend. For nights, this is only reversed in the third quarter which is also the annual peak for both spend and trips. In the final quarter nights and trips tend to be below trend but spend remains above. Therefore there is a seasonal cyclicity in all three series but the pattern is actually different.“

Staging events such as Frieze Art Fair, Art14 or any other art fairs invites tourists to visit the city during the quiet, off-peek periods.