In a Liverpool shopping centre, there\u2019s an upside-down house \u2013 a two-storey house that looks like it fell out of a Pixar film, but upside down. Its website promises that it is \u201cdesigned to amuse and challenge visitors\u2019 perceptions of space and gravity, leaving customers questioning their judgement\u201d. After paying \u00a37 to take some photos where it looks like you\u2019re in a house (but upside down), you can at least expect that last promise to be fulfilled.<\/p>\n
Recently, I got stuck behind some tourists meandering towards it. It was a Saturday morning, early in the school holidays, and it was busy. I\u2019m not sure what it was that gave these four Americans away \u2013 the clompy tennis shoes and polo shirt tucked into belted shorts invited a wild stab <\/strong>\u2013 but it was obvious they were new in town, fresh from the cruise ship buffet and ready to noodle around to their hearts\u2019 content. They stopped to look at the upside-down house.<\/p>\n \u201cSome kinda\u2026 upside-down house,\u201d one of them said in a Southern croak.<\/p>\n \u201cHow cuuuute,\u201d said another.<\/p>\n I wanted to turn them 180 degrees and point them back at their liner. It\u2019s not cute. It\u2019s a load of old guff. We\u2019ve got genuinely good stuff in Liverpool, stuff that\u2019s not upside down. Don\u2019t fancy that? Off to Madeira with you.<\/p>\n They were not the only day trippers in town though. Nearby, a queue of about 30 people deep had formed to take pictures in front of the massive letters spelling LIVERPOOL. The Albert Docks were heaving, the Beatles\u2019 statue at Pier Head even more so. A small clique of international high-fashion types organised a photoshoot with the Three Graces as a backdrop.<\/p>\n This summer, tourists are everywhere<\/a>, especially at home in London. Even near me in Turnpike Lane \u2013 which I don\u2019t think Lonely Planet has ever pitched as a must-see destination \u2013 you\u2019ll often see families with massive suitcases fiddling with Airbnb lockboxes. It\u2019s easy to mock them: their gigantic backpacks, chest-straps trussed up tight, worn while standing just inside the door of a rapidly filling Tube carriage; their guileless staring at town centre maps; their general air of bafflement. It\u2019s easy to resent them, too. They look daft, and they get in the way, and if you try to get round them, they panic and get even more in the way.<\/p>\n This tourist deluge isn\u2019t just a feeling \u2013 the stats back it up. Last year saw 41.2 million visits to the UK, the most ever recorded, and together those tourists spent a record \u00a331.5bn while they were here. And according to Visit Britain\u2019s forecasts<\/a>, this summer will be another record-breaker: 43.4 million visits, and \u00a333.7bn spent. Even more remarkably, the UN\u2019s data<\/a> says we\u2019ve overtaken France and Italy for international tourism receipts. Other reports<\/a> are more doomy, generally en route to a call for various levy and tax cuts. Yet our tourism sector is, however you slice it, a huge win.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also very much at odds with how we feel about ourselves right now. We\u2019ve never been more popular with the rest of the world. Yet the idea that the UK is finished as a serious country<\/a> <\/strong>has taken root in right-wing circles.<\/p>\n The catastrophising and miserablism is widespread. But it\u2019s not the whole truth. Could things be better? Yes. Could they be worse? Oh boy, could they ever. Britain\u2019s tourism boom is proof of that. <\/p>\n