London’s coronation countdown: Travellers arrive, others flee

LONDON - Ms Robin Higgins Horwitz knew she wanted to be in London for the coronation of King Charles III, even before the event was announced for May 6.

An avid British history buff, her interest in the royal family sparked as a teenager watching the 1981 wedding of then Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales.

“How many times does it happen in one’s lifetime that you get to see a coronation?” said the 58-year-old, who will travel from her home in Skokie, Illinois, next week for an organised tour that covers palaces, castles and towers linked to the royal family.

“It’s history in the making.”

Flags and royal emblems adorn the streets of London as it

prepares to celebrate Britain’s first coronation in 70 years

with great pomp and spectacle.

The three-day affair

will include a royal procession through central London, a celebrity-studded concert at Windsor Castle, and a national holiday on May 8, as well as street parties across the country.

Areas around Buckingham Palace and the central route known as the Mall are “crammed with people”, said Ms Patricia Yates, chief executive of VisitBritain, the national tourism agency. “There’s a real interest.”

Travellers from the United States – Britain’s biggest inbound market – are expected to lead next week’s swell of arrivals. Flight bookings from the US to Britain are about 10 per cent higher in May compared with in May 2019, before the pandemic, according to VisitBritain.

According to booking app Hopper, they are also more expensive – round-trip airfares from the US to London over coronation weekend averaged US$733 (S$980) in mid-April, 21 per cent higher than a year earlier.

After the coronation dates were announced, searches for Airbnb rentals in London during coronation weekend surged, according to the company. It said that US travellers were among the top guests in London around those dates, along with visitors from Britain, France, Australia and Germany.

By late March, hotel bookings in London on booking platform Expedia were 60 per cent higher for coronation weekend compared with the same time last year. By mid-April, rooms were averaging about US$350 per night, according to Hopper.

Ms Lana Bennett, chief executive of Tours International, a British company that runs special interest tours, said US visitors showed high interest in its six-night coronation tour, which Ms Higgins Horwitz is joining and was sold out by February.

But not all travellers headed to London over coronation weekend are thrilled.

Ms Laura Aveidi, a youth fitness instructor living in Houston, was disappointed to find out that her family vacation to London, which she booked last July, coincided with the festivities.

“The city is going to be packed and it’s not ideal. It really doesn’t interest us,” she said.

Despite booking early, two separate Airbnb hosts cancelled Ms Aveidi’s reservations in central London, leaving her scrambling. She paid almost double her budget for a third Airbnb at the last minute.

Although the company reimbursed her for some of her unexpected costs, she said planning the trip was a nightmare.

“One hundred per cent we would have changed the dates,” she said. On coronation day, she and her family will be taking a day trip to Liverpool to watch a soccer game instead.

Even some royal fans who attended the Platinum Jubilee are staying home, in what may be a reflection of King Charles historically being less popular than his mother, Queen Elizabeth II.

“They just don’t have the interest this year,” said Mr Ralph Iantosca, a Texas-based travel adviser, who only has one client visiting London that weekend. “The ones that did have the interest don’t want crowds.”

For people making a longer journey to attend the coronation, the event is not only a celebration of Charles’ coronation, but a way of connecting to their heritage.

Biotech company founder Paul Dabrowa, who lives in Melbourne, Australia, said being in London for the coronation is a way for him to honor his own family history. He said his family members were displaced from Poland during World War II and resettled by British law in Australia after the war.

“I have a lot of respect for the monarchy,” he said, adding that he also attended Queen Elizabeth’s funeral in September 2022.

He has not yet made up his mind about King Charles, but he will be watching the royal procession on May 6 in central London. “It’s worth giving him a chance and seeing what he’s going to do,” he added.

London-based software engineer Pranay Manocha will not be with the crowds cheering.

Mr Manocha, 43, said the fanfare is poorly timed, considering the rising cost of living in Britain, which has left many people struggling to afford their grocery bills.

Additionally, his grandparents were displaced by the Partition of India and Pakistan in 1947, a legacy of colonialism. Celebrating an institution that had left lasting pain did not seem right, he said.

“It’s going to be insufferable, almost, to see everybody celebrating the very thing that still hurts,” he said, adding that he would be going hiking in Cornwall on May 6 instead.

“I hope that the weather will be nice.” NYTIMES