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Inbound visits and spend: annual, UK

See the latest annual UK level estimates of the number of visits to the UK, spend by inbound visitors and nights spent in the UK, based on the International Passenger Survey (IPS) released by the Office of National Statistics.

Released on:

26 May 2023

Next release:

to be confirmed

For further information, please contact research@visitbritain.org.

Report highlights

  • In 2022, the UK welcomed 31.2m visits following two years of extremely low visits due to the impact of COVID-19 (down 24% vs 2019).
  • In 2022, visitors spent £26.5bn during the 12 months of 2022, down 7% on 2019 (in nominal terms) with Q4 2022 reaching a record £7.7bn. Taking inflation into account, visitor spend would have been 17% below 2019 levels, equivalent to £23.5bn in 2019 prices.
  • Over the 12 months, 262.9m nights were spent in the UK by inbound visitors, down 9% on 2019.
  • The average spend per visit was £848 in 2022 vs £696 in 2019, up 22% in nominal terms and 8% in real terms.
  • Visitors stayed longer in the UK on average in 2022 vs 2019; 8.4 nights per visit in 2022 vs 7.1 nights per visit in 2019.

View the latest report

PDF

Report: International Passenger Survey Total UK Summary 2022 (Published 26th May 2023)

Access the latest annual results in our summary report which covers headlines and distribution by journey purpose, global regions and selected markets.

Download (637.42 KB)

Data: International Passenger Survey Total UK data 2019-2022 (Published 26th May 2023)

Download the data in Excel and explore the detail in the pre-built pivot tables

Download (7.31 MB)

Explore the Total UK inbound data in full

Use our visualisations to see this data in greater depth and clarity. Filter by season, inbound market, purpose, mode, trip duration and nationality.

Further analysis

States of Residence 2014-2022

Find out where visitors from inbound markets to the UK reside in their own country (2014-2022)

Download (212.76 KB)

Market growth and rank from 2003-2022

See how inbound markets to the UK rank for different measures such as visits, spend and nights.

Download (528.12 KB)

Top 50 inbound tourism markets to the UK from 2009-2022

Find out the top 50 inbound markets for visits, spend and nights.

Download (95.78 KB)

Visits and spend from smaller/emerging inbound markets (2005-2022)

Find out tourism info from the smaller inbound markets to the UK

Download (528.12 KB)

Overseas residents to the UK vs UK residents going abroad

See how much tourism brings to the UK compared to how much UK residents spend abroad

Download (71.71 KB)

IPS spend and visits since 1964

See historical IPS data for visits and spend since 1964

Download (71.71 KB)
XLS

IPS trends 1979 - 2022

See trend data for a limited number of markets since 1979

Download (3.93 MB)

IPS Accommodation Trends 2004-2022

See where inbound visitors are staying in the UK.

Download (13.64 MB)

About the survey

The International Passenger Survey (IPS) is a continuous survey carried out by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). It covers all major air, sea and tunnel ports, providing detailed information on the numbers and types of visits made by people travelling to and from the UK.

From January to June 2022, the ONS was unable to restart interviewing at Eurotunnel due to COVID-19 restrictions so data for those travelling via this port is excluded for this time period. Interviewing at Eurostar was not affected by COVID-19 restrictions during this period. The ONS restarted IPS interviews at all ports from July 2022.

Please see About IPS for further information and the ONS.