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) | ||
VisitBritain sponsored an additional question on the International Passenger Survey to get a breakdown of business visits into more detailed categories, namely, 'Trade Fair/Exhibition', 'Conference/Large Meeting', and 'Other' in recent years.
Please note that data is available for 2007-2011 & 2014, it is not available for 2012, 2013 nor 2015. An even more detailed breakdown of business visit categories will be available in the 2016 IPS data, which will be published in 2017.
Type of business visits to the UK by overseas residents
|
Conference/ large meeting |
2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2014 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total visits (000) | 1,168 | 1,111 | 926 | 998 | 1,069 | 977 |
| Total nights (000) | 4,821 | 4,184 | 3,746 | 3,986 | 4,601 | 4,234 |
| Total spend £(m) | £799 | £814 | £691 | £789 | £862 | £896 |
| Other | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2014 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total visits (000) | 7,395 | 6,688 | 5,459 | 5,557 | 5,954 | 7,059 |
| Total nights (000) | 30,145 | 29,423 | 22,507 | 23,474 | 25,642 | 29,071 |
| Total spend £(m) | £3,564 | £3,485 | £2,849 | £3,069 | £3,315 | £3,935 |
| Trade fair or exhibition | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2014 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total visits (000) | 282 | 325 | 193 | 238 | 215 | 242 |
| Total nights (000) | 973 | 1,243 | 719 | 876 | 875 | 944 |
| Total spend £(m) | £183 | £277 | £147 | £178 | £214 | £195 |
| Total business visits | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2014 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total visits (000) | 8,845 | 8,124 | 6,579 | 6,793 | 7,238 | 8,277 |
| Total nights (000) | 35,939 | 34,850 | 26,972 | 28,336 | 31,118 | 34,249 |
| Total spend £(m) | £4,546 | £4,575 | £3,686 | £4,037 | £4,390 | £5,027 |
View our simple headline trend information (XLS, 33KB) from 1993-2014 in the number of visits, nights, and visitor spending by each business visit sub-category.
View data on how many business visitors participated in various activities when they came to the UK. Different activities were asked about in 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009 so check our sponsored questions (XLS, 127KB).
