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Originally Posted by Glice
If a 500,000 tourists spend £300 while they're here (that is, slightly less than it'd cost to stay in London for a week except in hostels) then you've put £150m into the economy. I'd say the number of tourists coming for buck-ing-ham palace is slightly lower, and the amount put into the British economy per visit is slightly higher.
I'm not particularly a royalist, or a Tory (the above is a classic Tory argument) but I suspect weight cost/ benefit is much more intrangible than just positing the explicit cost and assuming there's no benefit.
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"The argument that the monarchy brings in tourism revenue is not only irrelevant to a debate about our constitution, it is also untrue. There is not a single bit of evidence to back this up. Of the top 20 tourist attractions in the UK only one royal residence makes it, Windsor Castle at number 17 (beaten comfortably by Windsor Legoland, in at number 7). Royal residences account for less than 1% of total tourist revenue. Indeed, the success of the Tower of London (number 6 in the list) suggests that tourism would benefit if Buckingham Palace and Windsor castle were vacated by the Windsor family. The British tourist industry is successful and robust - castles and palaces would remain a part of our heritage regardless of whether or not we have a monarchy (look at Versaille). Other attractions, such as the London Eye, Trafalgar Square, the west end, Bath, Stonehenge, Britain's beautiful countryside and so on, will continue to attract tourists in the same numbers as they do today"
from Republic.org.uk