World-renowned street art boosts tourism in London’s creative East End
Photo Credit: Street art found in the East End of London. Flickr / Steve Haslam
Skift Take
With chain stores and iconic sights, it's difficult to experience a city from an angle that doesn't seem well trod. Street art tours give visitors an angle on a destination that may have a few surprises.
At one time, tours of London ventured only cautiously beyond the West End and Soho, and certainly no further east than the Tower of London. But recently the East End has established itself firmly on the tourist map, thanks in part to its open-air gallery of international renown – its colourful street art.
London’s graffiti has become just as much of an attraction as the more conventional art in its galleries — and it can be almost as valuable, if the theft this week of Banksy’s Slave Labour, wall and all, from Poundland in Wood Green and its subsequent listing at £450,000 on a US auction site is anything to go by.
Street art is now a global tourism force. There are specialist tours in Berlin, Paris, New York and Melbourne, in several British cities – and astonishingly, about ten different graffiti tours in London alone.
To find out what the East End streets had to offer I contacted Gary Means of Alternative Tours, and a day later found myself standing by our rendez
