24
| Hospitality Today | Oct / Nov 2016
The hospitality market: figures and analysis
Highest August ever for overseas visits to UK
New figures show that August was a record-breaking month for inbound tourism to the UK with 3.8 million visits, up 2 % on last August.
Overseas visitors to the UK spent £ 2.6 billion in August, 4 % up on the same month last year. Inbound tourism alone is worth more than £ 26 billion a year to the UK economy, and tourism overall is worth £ 127 billion.
August saw strong growth from North America with 510,000 visits, up 13 % compared to the same month last year.
The Office for National Statistics figures also show a record-breaking first eight months of the year for visits from EU countries, with 16.8 million visits, 3 % up on last year.
The latest figures bring inbound visits from January to August to 25 million, up 3 % on the same period last year and a record. Spending by visitors during this period was £ 14.6 billion.
Tourism Minister Tracey Crouch( below) said:“ 2016 has been an incredible year for British tourism and underlined our status as one of the top visitor destinations in the world.
“ We continue to attract a record number of tourists from across the globe, which is not only great news for the sector, but the whole economy.
“ We are absolutely committed to supporting the industry, and our Tourism Action Plan and £ 40 million Discover England Fund will help it grow further and spread the economic benefits across the country.”
A year of record growth for tourism
International visitors spent an extra £ 800 million across the nations and regions of Britain in the last year as a result of work by the national tourism agency VisitBritain, the latest figures show.
VisitBritain claimed that this showed every £ 1 invested in VisitBritain’ s activities resulted in an overseas visitor spending £ 23 in Britain.