Tourism to Britain Dropped Last Year, Regained Ground Q2

London - 16/07/2009 The Office of National Statistics has just released its data for tourism last year and, in separate document tourism in the first quarter of this year.

Tourism to the UK fell last year, for the first time since 2001, the year of foot and mouth and the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Overseas residents made 31.9 million visits to the UK last year, compared with 32.8 million the year before – a fall of 2.7 per cent.

The decline was particularly marked during the last quarter of the year, with visits falling by 13 per cent on the same period in 2007. Business visits were particularly hard hit with an overall fall of 25 per cent between the fourth quarter 2007 and the equivalent quarter in 2008.

Most countries saw a drop in the number of residents visiting the UK during 2008, although there were modest increases in the number of visits from France (3.6 million, up 6.8 per cent) and the Republic of Ireland (3.1 million, up 3.4 per cent).

This, combined with a sharp drop in visits from the US (3.0 million, down from 3.6 million), meant that France took first place in the table of countries whose residents made the most visits to the UK. The Irish Republic rose to second place, while the USA slipped to third.

Among other countries whose residents paid more than half a million visits to the UK, there were also increases in the number of visits from Poland (1.5 million, up 15 per cent) and Norway (0.7 million, up 13 per cent).

Despite the decline in the number of visits, spending on trips both to and from the UK reached record levels during 2008. Overseas residents coming to the UK spent a total of £16.3 billion, an increase of 2.3 percent on the 2007 figure.

However, tourism to Britain then increased by 3% in the second quarter of this year, compared to the previous three months. This is likely because of the weak Pound, which is also probably why the annual fall recorded for last year was not more severe.