- Since Meghan’s arrival to the House of Windsor, there has been a 1.4 Billion Pound increase to the British economy.
- £300 million uplift to tourism:
2011 saw a rise of more than 3% for U.K. tourism over the month of its royal wedding, according to Haigh.“We said, ‘OK, if the same thing happens this year, you have on average 3 million tourists a month to the U.K. If you get a slight increase in that, and they all spend a certain amount of money – I think about a thousand pounds, we said – then you’re going to get to that 300 million figure,” he told MarketWatch, in describing the impact on hotel operators such as InterContinental and other travel-industry players.
- £300 million in public-relations value: “It’s essentially advertising value equivalency to the U.K. as ‘Brand Britain,’ as a result of all the additional coverage related to the royal wedding,” Haigh said.• £250 million boost to retail/restaurants: A recent survey found about 40% of Britons were interested in the wedding, and that amounts to roughly 25 million people, Haigh told MarketWatch. If each person is inspired to somehow spend an extra £10, that works out to £250 million.He suggested that estimate could be lowballing it:
“It’s actually minimal, the benefit that you’re getting, and it actually could be potentially much higher.”
- £150 million uplift for fashion industry: “People seem to go crazy as soon as Meghan is seen wearing absolutely anything,” Haigh said.
For example, one green dress that she wore last month reportedly sold out within hours.
- £50 million boost to merchandise: Think “coins, stamps, mugs, all that sort of stuff,” the Brand Finance exec said.