London's visitor economy moved roughly £22 billion in 2025 — £17.4 billion from overseas guests, £4.8 billion from domestic — the largest city visitor economy in Europe. The money concentrates in a handful of postcodes, which is exactly where the heritage conversions are.
Accommodation takes the largest share of the London visitor wallet — around 30% — followed by food and drink (~25%), shopping (~20%) and entertainment (~15%). London's retail is itself an attraction: Oxford Street, Bond Street and Harrods pull spend that other cities cannot replicate.
The asymmetry is sharper than New York's: international visitors are ~57% of overnight volume but drive the vast majority of value, staying longer and booking higher categories. The domestic visitor is the volume; the American, Gulf and Asian visitor is the margin.
Central London luxury ADR runs above £500, with palace-tier suites far beyond. The conversion wave is a scarcity play: you cannot build a new Admiralty Arch, so the 96 rooms inside it will price on uniqueness. Mayfair and Belgravia hold the ceiling; the South Bank and the City are where the next rate growth is.
The volume engine beneath — Premier Inn, citizenM, the pod tier — exists because London's core is priced out of the mid-market. Every suite added at the top pushes another business traveller into a compact room in Shoreditch.
VisitBritain forecasts £33.7 billion in UK inbound spend for 2025, with London taking more than half. The structural story is the third runway and Eurostar capacity: both are demand multipliers. The risk is the cost of the city itself — the lack of tax-free shopping and the ETA visa fee are already shaving the shopping-tourism edge. London's answer is to sell what cannot be bought elsewhere: heritage, converted.
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