A YouGov poll conducted during the late Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations earlier this year found that 62 per cent of Britons support the monarchy. Is it due to the fact that monarchy is inscribed within the British mindset? Or, because the late Queen was certainly seen as the ultimate matriarch in British society by many?
Whatever the prime reason, interestingly, Britain has enough economic reason to go ahead with its monarchy intact. The monarchy certainly generates huge revenue for Britain, much more than the expenses incurred by the British society for its maintenance. Thus, monarchy is not only a status symbol, it helps the businesses of the British brands — not only within Britain but also beyond. The British monarch is also the head of state of 14 other nations including Australia and Canada and is the ultimate brand ambassador.
What do the Royals really do? Well, they have several public programmes, public engagements, and charities they support. British Royals have about 3,200 public engagements yearly. These and their numerous foreign visits indirectly push the ‘Buy British’ campaign quite a bit. The estimated benefit to the UK economy delivered by the monarchy through trade and international relations is £150 million annually.
A five-year-old estimate is widely available in the public domain. In 2017, during the Platinum Wedding Anniversary of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, the consultancy firm Brandfinance estimated the value of the British monarchy as if it were a branded business.
Revenue far exceeds costs
While accumulating tangible and intangible assets of the Brand Monarchy has surpassed £67.5 billion, Brandfinance estimated that the monarchy generated an annual ‘gross uplift’ to the UK economy of £1.766 billion, while its annual running cost is £292 million. It costs the taxpayers surprisingly low — equal to only £4.50 per person per year. And the revenue generated by Brand Monarchy is thus £1.474 billion — far in excess of the total costs of the monarchy!
Incidentally, Brandfinance also estimated the worth of the UK monarchy as just under £57 billion in 2015, and its overall net contribution was estimated to be £1.155 billion to the UK economy at that time. So, the Brand Monarchy in Britain kept on expanding. One may wonder how much these figures are at present.
Tourism is certainly the most benefited sector generated by the Monarchy. The Royal events and London’s royal borough of Kensington and Chelsea which house plenty of attractions associated with the monarchy, draw a huge number of tourists. The grandeur and the ambience of the living royal residences also draw millions of tourists every year. In fact, the top three Royal residences — Windsor Castle, Buckingham Palace, and Holyrood Palace — drew 15 lakh, 6 lakh, 4 lakh annual visitors in 2016-17. The overall uplift to the tourism sector was estimated at a staggering £550 million in Brandfinance’s report.
“The colourful ceremonial of monarchy with links to the past, royal anniversaries, weddings and state visits is much loved by the public as it attracts both national and international attention,” said Richard Fitzwilliams, royal commentator. Well, when Prince William and Kate Middleton got married in 2011, half of the UK watched some form of wedding coverage.
An additional 6 lakh people came to London for that weekend — 40 per cent from overseas. They spent upwards of £107 million while staying in London. The event was live-streamed 72 million times on YouTube in 188 countries with more than two billion people watching the ceremony globally. The added value to Britain’s ‘brand’ was due to global media coverage worth approximately £1 billion.
In today’s Britain, the ‘Kate Middleton effect’ is so strong that if Kate — now the Princess of Wales — wears a high-street brand, the stock sells out in minutes. In 2013, the birth of Prince George, now second in line to the throne, generated an estimated £247 million in UK retail sales. When Princess Charlotte, the second child of William and Kate, was born, the UK’s Centre for Retail Research estimated it would trigger not only a short-term boost of £80 million, but the fact that Kate gave birth to a girl could be crucial to the UK’s fashion and retail sales in the long term. Prince Louis also added £50 million to the UK economy simply by being born, through souvenirs, memorabilia and baby clothes.
The ‘Meghan Markle effect’ is also astonishing. The fairytale-type marriage of Harry and Meghan generated an estimated £500 million, of which, £200 million came from tourism, travel, and hotels. Even the mystique surrounding the Monarchy contributes tens of millions of pounds to the media industry and arts. The huge popularity of the period dramas like The Crown and Victoria is just an illustration of that.
Thus, Britain might have a strong economic reason to continue with its Monarchy, particularly in the backdrop of the pandemic-hit post-Brexit reality.
The writer is Professor of Statistics, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata