Overseas visitors spent £1.76bn ($2.73bn) in the UK during October and £18.2bn ($28.3bn) in the first 10 months of 2014.

 

Government tourism body Visit Britain says this is the second highest October spending on record and 6% behind the October record set last year. It also adds that it now expects overseas visitors to spend more than £22bn ($34.2bn) in total in calendar year 2015.

 

The Office for National Statistics has now published revised spending figures for the first nine months of 2014 (following the discovery of a processing error during the creation of the September tables). In general, the previously published monthly spending figures have been revised upwards.

 

Spending across the first 10 months of 2014 was 2% higher than the same period last year and combining the spend over the past 10 months with a particularly strong end to 2013, visitor spending was 3% higher over the rolling 12 months to October 2014, compared to the 12 months to October 2013.

 

In total, the UK welcomed 1% more visits in October 2014 than last year, a little more than 3m overseas visits. Over the first ten months of 2014 and the rolling 12 months to October 2014, visits were 5% above the levels seen over the same period last year.

 

ENCOURAGING GROWTH TRENDS

Visits to the UK for the purposes of holiday breaks dipped by 2% in October this year, compared to October 2013. After a particularly strong start, holiday visits over the first ten months of 2014 were 8.26m – 7% higher than the same period last year. It was also record October for VFR [visiting friends and relatives] up 3% on October last year and setting a new October ‘year to date’ high.

 

Meanwhile, business visits continued to post growth during October 2014, up 8% compared to October 2013. Over the first ten months of 2014 there were 6.8m business visits to the UK by overseas residents, the highest number of business visits over the first ten months of a year since 2008.

 

Visits from North America to the UK rose 11% in October compared to October 2013. Over the first ten months, North American visits were 4% higher compared to the same period in 2013 and the highest since 2008.

 

Visits to the UK from countries in the European Union have increased this year. Visits from the 15 EU markets and Other EU countries posted increases of 7% and 5% respectively during the ten months to October 2014.

 

Visits from EU15 improved 1% to take a new October record; visits from Other EU countries fell 2% against the record October last year. [The EU-15 are known as: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the UK-Ed].