https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism_in_the_United_Kingdo...
"Official statistics for the final quarter of 2019 have yet to been published, although in 2018 a total of 37.9 million people visited the UK from overseas and cumulatively spent £22.8 billion"
What percentage of that spending are the royal family actually responsible for? It's hard to disambiguate, but it's surely only a portion of it.
How much less spending would there be if there was no more royal family? Again, hard to estimate. But several European countries have more tourism without royal families. So possibly less than one would expect.
I doubt the royals drive that much tourism. Tourists still flock to Paris and Istanbul despite no royals living there and also to Amsterdam where the royals don't have a powerful brand image.
My point is you don't need living or active royals for tourism.
Turkey has sunny locations.
England is rainy. Music, literature and the royals are its reason for visiting
I never visited England for the royals. I went to see London, York, Cambridge. Couldn't care less if any royals are currently there or not because I can't see them anyway.
Palace of Versailles, 10m visitors.
But it's not nearly as lavish as Versailles is, and its place in history is much less important. It wasn't completed until after the monarchy had become subordinate to the Parliament. Its residents have always been figureheads.
Versailles, by contrast, is the ultimate in conspicuous consumption. The building is insanely gaudy, inside and out. The grounds are jaw-dropping. It can take you a day just to walk them. Compared to it, Buckingham Palace is a cottage.
It's also redolent in French history. It was the court at the absolute height of French monarchical power, and played crucial roles in the fall of that power. Marie Antoinette's Petit Trianon, where she dressed up as a peasant girl and played at being a milkmaid, is a potent symbol of how out of touch the monarchy had become.
People would surely come to see Buckingham Palace, home to Queens Victoria and Elizabeth, and be informed about some of the important events that happened there. More would come if it were more open. But it would never be the draw that Versailles is, and people would not come out raving about what extravagant lives its residents led.
We also have 1000 years of history, museums full of stuff we pillaged, the best pubs in the world, and Greggs.
Quite why anyone would want to visit any other country is a mystery.
Oh, and we're the best at sarcasm.
Upper/cermonial classes exlst all over the world.
Conspicious consumption and conspicuous leisure serve a purpose - you want to be like me then do what I say. Its a method of control.