Many column miles are being and will continue to be devoted to the Royal Wedding, now confirmed to be on 29th April 2011. Amidst those cheering and enthusiastic about the prospect of a double Bank Holiday weekend stretching over eleven days are a good number snarling from their sofas about the cost, the Royals and all sorts of social hangups. Others point to the British disease of more and longer complete "works shutdowns" (Parliament probably being the biggest offender). We pretty much write off the second half of December, Easter has already been lengthening into a week, the summer break or at least the period in which anywhere near 100% manning of offices is likely, runs from mid June to early September. Then there's the winter half term.. and so it goes on. Allied to this, industrialists bemoan the loss of more production days. "Where will it end ?" they ask as the gap between European and Asian productivity expands by the day.
Back to this particular hopefully one off occasion, my guess is that at worst the whole event will be cost neutral with some businesses doing very well out of it at least balancing those who lose. The travel and hospitality industry and their suppliers will be particularly jubilant and brewers and wine merchants over the moon. The VAT collectors should be pretty happy too. In mid summer most London hotels and airlines are full anyway, so the incremental gains would have been low. April 29th, just after a very late Easter, should be the beginning of a low demand period stretching into June, so this will allow maximum gain and produce a significant mini boom right at the beginning of the 2011/2012 financial year for the many companies who run from April to March.
Whether the other big beneficiaries will be British and therefore good for the domestic economy or foreign manufacturers of memorablia/souvenir mugs and the like remains to be seen .If UK producers can't even compete in the tat market we really are in trouble.Whatever happens though we will see a large amount of foreign exchange flow in with every Eurostar and flight from America. Thankyou everybody,- we really need it and thankyou to the happy couple for choosing a date which really does give UK Plc the highest potential for gains and the ringing of tills.That should cheer us up a bit. That other couple, Dave and Nick, will be looking forward to it too.
