London 2012

The royal wedding comes just one year before the 2012 London Olympics and Paralympics, for which the country has been gearing up for years.

More than 8 million tickets will be available to the Olympics and 2 million to the Paralympics. VisitBritain estimates that the Games will generate between 500,000 and 900,000 visitors to London.

After the International Olympic Committee awarded the Games to London in 2005, VisitBritain commissioned an Oxford Economics study, which found that the events could generate $3 billion in tourism gains for the country, 54% of which will be realized after the Games are over.

"Part of VisitBritain's strategy is to close the sale after the Games," Clarkson said. "That's why it's tied into a four-year marketing campaign."

But the Olympics have long been a controversial topic within the travel industry, and not everyone shares VisitBritain's optimism about the opportunities the Games represent.

The European Tour Operators Association, for example, has long cited the adverse effects that hosting the Olympic Games can have on a leisure travel destination.

When the ETOA surveyed 200 tour operators at its annual Global European Marketplace event in November, 68% said they expected business to fall off in London in 2012, and among those respondents, the average anticipated drop was 30%.

"No Olympic Games have been able to estimate demand with any accuracy," Tom Jenkins, executive director of ETOA, said in a statement. "Every city has believed that more foreign visitors will come than actually materialize. Thus, the principal danger of the Games is the imbalance between perception and reality."

The Olympics typically present several challenges for the leisure travel industry, the key challenge being a displacement of leisure travelers as throngs of sports fans take over a destination. Many leisure tour operators, in fact, go dark for the destination during the Games.

Another complicating issue is the fact that much of the business surrounding the Games is controlled by the local organizing committee. Indeed, 65% of London's hotel inventory for the event will be surrendered to the London Organizing Committee for the 2012 Games, Rodrigues said.

Yet, VisitBritain remains optimistic about hosting the Olympics, arguing that whatever leisure tourists are lost during the Games will be won back after the closing ceremonies.