The Queen's Jubilee - Can We Afford the Celebration?

• Survey Reveals 50% of Brits Have to Limit Jubilee Plans Due to the Cost of Living Crisis

New research, which surveyed 2,183 adults in the UK, has revealed that just under half (49%) of the British public is having to limit their Jubilee plans because of the increased cost of living.

The research from leading household and business utilities retailer Power Compare has shed yet more light on the extensive reach of the cost of living crisis. 

This is all the more shocking when we look at the backdrop of the context around the celebration, the numbers who partied for previous Royal events in 2011 and 2018, not to mention, the massive injection these festivities gave the economy.

The Context

The Platinum Jubilee marks the 70th year that Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II has been the ruling Monarch of the UK. Whether people are fans of the Royal family or not, the event is still historic, with this Jubilee representing the first Platinum Jubilee of any Queen or King of England.

The previous Royal event was the celebration of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's wedding in 2018, an event watched by an estimated 1.9 billion people and celebrated by 8,000 UK street parties. The event was estimated to have brought in just under £1 billion to UK tourism!

These figures pale in comparison to that of Prince William and Kate Middleton’s 2011 wedding, which generated just under £2 billion for the UK economy and saw an estimated 5,5000 street parties with £107 million in direct extra spending for the celebrations. 

Leaving aside the stark differences in UK attendance between these two weddings, the number of Brits projected to participate in 2022 Platinum Jubilee events this bank holiday is expected to soar to a whopping 12 million people!

Owing to the “high degree of uncertainty, [the UK Government] have not made an attempt to estimate how tourism expenditure may be impacted in relation to previous Jubilee bank holidays” in their Platinum Jubilee impact assessment.

However, given this looks likely to be the last Royal event for the Queen, and her global popularity unparalleled by any other British Royal, the impact to the economy from additional tourism is likely to be an extended one. 

The Findings

The question, however, is whether UK citizens will be able to celebrate with the abandon a UK economy requires for a deficit inducing bank holiday to become a cosy cash injection.

Power Compare posed this question to the UK public:

"Has the increased cost of living this year limited your plans for the jubilee/spring bank holiday weekend?"

In response a whopping 49% of people answered ‘yes’, meaning that just under half of the population are limiting celebrating the first Platinum Jubilee to be celebrated by a ruling British monarch directly because of increased cost of living.

Of those who answered yes, it seems that Gen X and Gen Z are the most likely to need to limit plans owing to the increased cost of living, with 53% of each age group planning on limiting their bank holiday plans.

While the remaining 51% of the UK answered ‘no’ to limiting their plans, this category was also made up of those who didn’t have plans or weren’t planning any form of celebration. Options that weren’t shared by those answering ‘yes’.

If the UK public cannot celebrate to plug the gap caused by reduced working hours over the new bank holiday, the economy could go from bad to worse. With the government predicting the current monetised impact of the Jubilee to sit at -£2.39 billion. 

The results shown within this survey have a margin of error of 1% using a 95% confidence interval and are weighted by age and gender to be nationally representative of the UK public.