Drop in overseas visitors holidaying in Britain
Visits to the UK by overseas residents rose very slightly in the third quarter of 2016 to an estimated 10.7 million.
The latest ONS figures show numbers were up 1.5% compared with the number of visits made during the same period in 2015.
Of the 10.7 million total, 4.4 million came to Britain on holiday, but this represented a drop of 1.7% over 2015.
The fall was balanced out by a 5.5% rise in the number of visits to friends and relatives, largely from North America (9.6%) and from Europe (7.7%).
Business visits rose 1.9%.
Overall, an estimated total of 96.9 million nights were spent in the UK by overseas residents during the June to September period, a fall of 0.2% compared with the same quarter in 2015.
The number of nights spent in the UK by overseas visitors from North America increased by 5.8%, while nights spent in the UK by residents of Europe rose by 1%.
But the number of nights spent by residents of other countries fell by 4.5%.
Overnight visits to London fell by 0.8% to 5.2 million, but those to the rest of England saw an increase of 3.2% when compared with the same period in 2015.
Overnight visits to Scotland increased by 4.5%, as to Wales by 8.6%.
Estimated earnings from all visits to the UK rose 3% to £7.4 billion.
Spending by residents of North America saw the largest increase of 17.5% to £1.4 billion.
Spending by residents of ‘other countries’ also grew, by 2.7%, but spending by residents of Europe fell by 1.8%.
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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