{"id":6962,"date":"2017-11-28T11:42:55","date_gmt":"2017-11-28T11:42:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ounews.co\/?p=6962"},"modified":"2017-11-28T11:42:55","modified_gmt":"2017-11-28T11:42:55","slug":"no-royal-wedding-bank-holiday-thats-probably-good-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/business-law\/business\/no-royal-wedding-bank-holiday-thats-probably-good-thing\/","title":{"rendered":"No Royal Wedding bank holiday: Why that\u2019s probably a good thing\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the feel-good factor of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle\u2019s engagement<\/a>, many of us were crossing our fingers that we\u2019d get an extra bank holiday in the Spring of 2018 to help them celebrate. But on average, a bank holiday costs the UK economy \u00a32.3billion in lost economic output<\/a> \u2013 so maybe we\u2019ll all be better off that there isn\u2019t going to be one<\/a> after all.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Royal

Prince Harry’s wedding won’t get the bank holiday we enjoyed for Prince William and Kate’s<\/p><\/div>\n

In years where there is a \u2018one off\u2019 bank holiday, such as for a Royal Wedding or Jubilee, data on the UK\u2019s Gross Domestic Product showed that economic growth is adversely affected. One estimate put the cost of the bank holiday to celebrate the wedding of Prince William and Kate at 0.4% of GDP in the second quarter of 2011.\u00a0 But it isn\u2019t all doom and gloom \u2013 despite this initial negative impact, the cost was estimated to have been recouped in the following quarter-years.<\/p>\n

Bank holidays aren’t all bad<\/h2>\n

But money lost in some areas of the economy could be retrieved in other areas, and we shouldn\u2019t focus too much on the negative impacts of bank holidays \u2013 here\u2019s why:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The UK has eight public holidays – significantly fewer than other countries, with Spain for example having fourteen and France twelve, and industrious Japan having 16! \u00a0\u00a0We aren\u2019t over-rewarding ourselves with bank holidays, that\u2019s certain.<\/li>\n
  2. The impact of bank holidays on certain businesses varies.\u00a0 For instance a business which caters for a company would indeed lose a day of earnings \u2013 but for others the work \u2018lost\u2019 on a bank holiday is shunted to another day (e.g. getting your car serviced). Elsewhere holiday related businesses like pubs and cinemas, could have a boost in earnings.<\/li>\n
  3. Some shops such as supermarkets now remain open on bank holidays; so business does carry on regardless.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Martin Upton, Director of True Potential PUFIN<\/a> notes \u201cWe\u2019d only know the true cost to the economy if we materially reduced or increased the number of bank holidays and then did a \u2018before and after\u2019 analysis.\u00a0 This is unlikely to happen so we should just do what the great British public does best and enjoy the bank holidays we do have (whatever the weather), and celebrate Prince Harry and Meghan\u2019s wedding regardless!\u201d<\/p>\n

    Read more about the cost of bank holidays<\/a> in Martin Upton’s blog.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    With the feel-good factor of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle\u2019s engagement, many of us were crossing our fingers that we\u2019d get an extra bank holiday in the Spring of 2018 to help them celebrate. But on average, a bank holiday costs the UK economy \u00a32.3billion in lost economic output \u2013 so maybe we\u2019ll all be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":6963,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[216,755,1384,1943],"class_list":["post-6962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-bank-holidays","tag-economy","tag-martin-upton","tag-royal-wedding"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}