Who is visiting Britain? Tourist numbers remain below pre-pandemic levels

Both trips abroad by Britons and visits to the UK from overseas were down last year when compared with 2019 data

Tourists take photographs in front of Buckingham Palace. Getty

The tourism industry is yet to recover to pre-pandemic levels, latest figures show.

Trips abroad by Britons and visits to the UK from overseas last year were down by around a quarter since 2019, data from the Office of National Statistics shows.

Tourists from outside the UK made 31.2 million visits to Britain in 2022, a decrease from the 40.9 million seen before the Covid pandemic.

However, the number of visits was up from the 6.4 million trips taken previous year.

UK residents also registered a sharp rise in holidays, with 71 million trips abroad taken in 2022, compared to just 19.1 million visits the previous year. The number of holidays were still down on their record high from 2019, when there were 93.1 million taken.

“The increase in overseas visitors to the UK in 2022 compared with the year before can be attributed to the easing of coronavirus travel restrictions towards the end of 2021,” a spokesperson for ONS told The National.

Despite the surge in the last year, 2022’s travel figures were 24 per cent down on pre-pandemic levels, meaning the industry faces a long road to recovery.

Experts said the slow return is due to a “perfect storm of challenges”.

“The post-pandemic operational landscape is challenging to say the least with travel and hospitality players experiencing staff shortages as well as disruption from labour disputes,” said Caroline Bremner, senior head of travel research at Euromonitor International.

She said the cost of living crisis was “taking its toll on UK consumers as well as key source markets to the UK such as Europe” and that rising inflation was “eating into consumers’ disposable income for discretionary items like travel.”

Ms Bremner said that “lingering challenges post-Brexit, such as stricter border controls” and “some airports facing significant challenges at peak travel times,” were also impacting the UK's travel industry.

The outlook for recovery remained “mixed” with “international travel to the UK expected to recover ahead of UK outbound tourism in terms of volume of trips,” she said.

“However, tourism spending for both outbound and inbound will return to pre-crisis 2019 levels by 2025, boosted by inflationary costs as the price of lodging and flights are passed on to consumers.”

Of the nationalities to visit the UK, the US was top, followed by France, Ireland, Germany and Spain. Among the top 10 countries, the only other non-EU country was Canada.

London was the most popular destination in Britain, attracting 16.1 million overnight visits in 2022. Edinburgh was the next most popular, followed by Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool. Glasgow, Bristol, Cambridge, Oxford and Brighton/Hove rounded off the top 10.

Tourists spent £26.5 billion on their visits to the UK in 2022, an increase of £20.9 billion compared to the previous year.

Data showed trips by overseas visitors were shorter in 2022 compared to 2021, but one day longer than pre-pandemic years, at an average of eight nights. Tourists also spent more compared to before the Covid outbreak, at an average spend per visit of £843 in 2022, compared to £875 in 2021 and £696 in 2019.

UK residents spent £58.5 billion on visits abroad in 2022 – £43 billion more than in 2021. The average spend per visit was £823 in 2022, only slightly more than the previous year, but 23 per cent higher than in 2019, when the average spend was £670.

Europe was the top destination, with Spain accounting for the most visits, followed by France, Italy, Greece and Portugal.

The only countries to appear in the UK's top 10 outside Europe were the US, in sixth place and Turkey, in eighth.