The USA is a crucial market for the British luxury sector. Whether driven by British luxury goods on sale in the United States or wealthy American tourists visiting the UK, the opportunity for growth in Anglo-American luxury trade and tourism has never been more visible – or valuable.
The American market is still the largest market for luxury worldwide, valued at $104 billion and experiencing a growth of 25% versus 2021. New York alone accounts for $32bn of that, still one third of the total US luxury market.
The US remains the UK’s top inbound tourism market by value and pre-pandemic almost 4.5 million Americans visited the UK in 2019 spending a total of £4.2 billion in (up 4% on 2018). The leisure market leads the reasons for visiting with holidays accounting for nearly 50% of all visits to the UK followed by visiting friends and family at 28%. Post pandemic, US visitors have been some of the first to return and have exceeded previous values with spend up 15% on 2019.
That's why Walpole is leading a 3-day delegation to New York from 7th to 9th March 2023.
Building on the success of previous pre-pandemic trips, the newly formatted programme for March 2023 will see Walpole host a series of events and meetings to promote both British luxury in the US and high-value American visitors to the UK. This delegation is designed to promote Anglo-American trade, develop business, media and diplomatic relationships and support Walpole members in promoting and developing their brands in the US. It will also support trade with one of our key export markets and promote US tourism to the UK.
Walpole’s US programme is supported by a number of key stakeholders and partners including the key trade and tourism bodies both here in the UK and the US as well as local partners supporting the luxury sector such as:
