Professor John Fletcher on Gibraltar’s Economy

Bournemouth University’s Professor in Tourism and Director of the ICTHR (International Centre for Tourism and Hospitality Research), Professor John Fletcher added comment to a report written on Yahoo news about Gibraltar’s booming economy and the trouble the British-owned Island faces.

Recent studies show that the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the island expanded by 7.9 per cent last year to 1.4 billion pounds.

Compared to Britain’s “sluggish” 0.2 per cent GDP increase and Spain’s 1.4 per cent decrease, Gibraltar’s economy can only be described as “booming”.

“I have studied the Gibraltar economy for the past 35 years and I have seen it grow from an economy that provided support to Britain’s Ministry of Defence and was very much a blue collar economy into an economy with a high proportion of well qualified professionals.” Professor John Fletcher said.

Britain has sharply reduced its military presence in Gibraltar only accounting for 6.0 per cent of the local economy in contrast to 60 per cent in the 1960’s.

Dean Eastmond

Dean is a student at Budmouth College in Weymouth, who is working at Bournemouth University in the Press and PR Department. He joined BU on a Sir Samuel Mico Scholarship, which provides 10 students from his college with essential work experience for four weeks over the summer.