The business visits and events sector is incredibly diverse, covering trade fairs, conferences and congresses, outdoor and entertainment events as well as business tourism.
The latest annual data from the International Passenger Survey is available below. View data for visits, nights, and spend of business visitors, as well as filter visits by age, gender, season, mode of transport, length of stay for the last full year of data. We also have latest quarterly data available for the whole of the UK, for the nations and regions of Britain and annual trends by area where you can filter by journey purpose (including business visits).
| Overview of UK visitor statistics in | Change from previous year | |
|---|---|---|
| Number of visits | ||
| Total expenditure (GBP) | ||
| Total nights spent | ||
| Average length of stay (Nights) | ||
| Average spend per visit (GBP) | ||
In 2016 VisitBritain sponsored an additional question on the International Passenger Survey to understand the breakdown of the business visits into more detailed categories, namely: Meetings of 1-5 people, Meetings of 6-20 people, Large Meetings of 21+ people, Conferences and Conventions, Training and Development, Exhibition and Trade Shows, Incentive and Team Building and Other.
Type of business visits to the UK by overseas residents, 2016
|
Business Event Type |
Visits (000) | Nights (000) | Spend (£m) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Meeting 1-5 people | 1,799 | 4,706 | £1,011 |
| Meeting 6-20 people | 1,707 | 5,271 | £1,323 |
| Meeting 21+ people | 497 | 1,898 | £508 |
| Conference/Convention | 566 | 2,407 | £537 |
| Training/Development | 351 | 2,691 | £363 |
| Exhibiiton/Trade Show | 204 | 769 | £194 |
| Incentive/Team Building | 68 | 320 | £69 |
| Other | 3,459 | 14,864 | £1,018 |
| Don't Know | 542 | 4,090 | £430 |
| ALL BUSINESS VISITS | 9,187 | 37,016 | £5,452 |
Business visits accounted for 24% of all visits in 2016 and contributed £5.5 billion in spend. Our Foresight report Understanding Business Visits (PDF, 936KB) explores the business sub category data in more detail.
Some key highlights from the report show there were 3.5 million visits were made to attend small and medium sized meetings (fewer than 20 people), while 491,000 visits were made to attend larger meetings. For conferences and exhibitions, 771,000 visits took place.
Regional breakdown of visits are provided, with London continuing to lead in terms of share of visits, night and spend. For the East and West Midlands, East of England, North East, North West and Yorkshire, at least a quarter of visits were made for business.
As part of the Discover England Fund, additional research has been completed to further understand the decision making process (PDF, 2.7MB) when selecting a meeting or conference location as well as awareness and consideration of British cities. Published July 2017
An additional report is also available on delegate expenditure and business extenders (PDF, 2.7MB) (delegates who extend their trip for leisure). Published January 2018
And another report looks at the China MICE Market (PDF, 12.7 MB). It provides key insights to understand the characteristics of the Chinese meetings and incentives market. Published September 2018
View data on how many business visitors participated in various activities when they came to the UK in 2017 (XLS, 449KB), including going to the theatre or visiting a park. Published November 2018
Each year we ask about different activites so check our sponsor questions (XLS, 150KB).
A full dataset of activites that can be filtered to business visitors can be found on our dedicated activities page.
