Spending Time: London's Leisure Economy

Leisure is a vital component of London's success. Londoners spend more than £150 a month on leisure, and the sector injects £9.5 billion into London's economy. Increasingly, people are spending their spare time and money on activities away from home - dining, theatre and cinemas, drinking, playing and watching sport, gambling and visiting London's vast numbers of attractions.

Leisure is also vital to London's tourism industry, and businesses' decisions to locate here and attract and retain first-rate employees.

Spending Time: London's Leisure Economy - published by GLA Economics in November 2003 - provides an economic analysis of this part of London's life, which helps us to understand its importance to the economy and to Londoners.

It is the first report of its kind, bringing together previously disparate research on the size and scale of London's leisure sector - restaurants, pubs and clubs, entertaining in theatres and cinemas, sports, gambling and visitor attractions.

The report estimates that a quarter of the UK leisure economy is in London and that it has grown by nearly 30 per cent from 1995 to 2001. Leisure activities employ nearly 300,000 people and provide highly skilled, entry level and part-time jobs, which are vitally important in giving the widest possible range of job opportunities to Londoners.