Foreign visits rise by 10% in the third quarter

10 November 2004
Foreign visits rise by 10% in the third quarter

Britain attracted a record-breaking 8.3 million visits from foreign tourists in the three months to September 2004, according to the government's latest International Passenger Survey.

The number of overseas trips made between July and September was 10% higher than the figure reported in the same quarter of 2003.

"The latest statistics on inbound international visitors confirm recent reports that Britain is outperforming its European competitors in terms of the growth in the number of trips," said VisitBritain chief executive Tom Wright.

The new figures support forecasts from VisitBritain that the country will see a record-smashing 26.3 million trips from overseas visitors by the end of the year.

The increase was fuelled by a 10% rise in trips from both Western Europe (to 5 million) and the rest of the world (to 1.85 million), and a 9% increase in visits from North America to 1.4 million.

Spend grew at the lower rate of 3% to £4.1b, although September saw a year-on-year dip from £1.2b to £1.18b.

VisitBritain believes the current weakness of the dollar against the pound is deterring traditionally high-spending American visitors from dipping so deeply into their wallets.

Overseas visits in the 12 months to September grew by 11% to 26.97m, with double-digit growth in all markets. Spend grew by 7% to £12.6b.

  • The British Incoming Tour Operators Association (BITOA) has changed its name to UKinbound. The organisation, which was founded in 1977, represents 260 inbound tourism operators.

by Angela Frewin

Buy this week's Caterer magazine for more industry news and analysis

TagsTourism and Trends
The Caterer Breakfast Briefing Email

Start the working day with The Caterer’s free breakfast briefing email

Sign Up and manage your preferences below

Check mark icon
Thank you

You have successfully signed up for the Caterer Breakfast Briefing Email and will hear from us soon!

Jacobs Media is honoured to be the recipient of the 2020 Queen's Award for Enterprise.

The highest official awards for UK businesses since being established by royal warrant in 1965. Read more.

close

Ad Blocker detected

We have noticed you are using an adblocker and – although we support freedom of choice – we would like to ask you to enable ads on our site. They are an important revenue source which supports free access of our website's content, especially during the COVID-19 crisis.

trade tracker pixel tracking