Every time the royal family puts on a wedding, coronation, christening, birth, or funeral, the tourist dollars generated pay for the cost of maintaining the family many times over. The royal family is the most valuable and profitable generator of foreign exchange the UK has, with the possible exception of BP.
The only possible reason for anti-royalist animosity is class envy. But of course, that's the main reason the American democrat party exists.
There are several different articles online regarding the amount of revenue generated by the royal wedding...lowest I found was around 50million pounds (which is about $75million depending on today's conversion rate) to as high as 82million pounds. Counting the wedding, the Queen's Jubilee and the Olympics next year, the 3 events are expected to bring into the UK, well into the billions.
The citizenry can complain all they want about the "royals", but since they are more figureheads than rulers, the people should appreciate them as a profitable "commodity" of their country if nothing else.
Yes, it was a forced day off.
"Forced" yes, but it was a PAID holiday. Those who probably wouldn't qualify for paid holidays, like in hotel/restaurant, transportation, and retail, most likely were working...as their places of business were open for tourist trade. Crowd estimates made by the police were around 1 million people...that's a whole lot of people needing food, drink and transportation.
