Inbound trends by UK town

Find out the top towns for inbound visitors to Britain, as well as how many visits were made by overseas residents to the UK's towns. 

The International Passenger Survey (IPS) was impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic from 2020 to June 2022. Therefore the data for 2021 and 2022 below has some caveats which can be found detailed on the About IPS page.

You can access the towns data showing the 20 most visited towns and cities by visitors from overseas (XLS, 30KB) as far back as 1999.

Please visit the dedicated pages for national, regional and county data or detailed market information.

Top towns for 'staying visits' by inbound visitors

  2022   2021   2019  
             
  Town/city Visits (000s) Town/city Visits (000s) Town/city Visits (000s)
1 London 16,118 London 2,723 London 21,713
2 Edinburgh 1,796 Manchester 306 Edinburgh 2,206
3 Manchester 1,230 Birmingham 205 Manchester 1,661
4 Birmingham 803 Edinburgh 199 Birmingham 1,112
5 Liverpool 680 Liverpool 139 Liverpool 845
6 Glasgow 618 Glasgow 116 Glasgow 771
7 Bristol 455 Bristol 106 Brighton/Hove 647
8 Cambridge 440 Cambridge 85 Bristol 636
9 Oxford 425 Oxford 73 Oxford 581
10 Brighton / Hove 339 Brighton 70 Cambridge 462
11 Leeds 289 Leeds 53 Bath 401
12 Bath 273 Newcastle 53 Cardiff 382
13 Newcastle-upon-Tyne 248 Southampton 47 Leeds 338
14 Cardiff 204 Leicester 47 York 297
15 Southampton 194 Nottingham 43 Newcastle-upon-Tyne 282
16 York 193 Luton 38 Inverness 275
17 Nottingham 189 Cardiff 37 Stratford-upon-Avon 271
18 Leicester 180 Chester 35 Nottingham 245
19 Luton 165 Bath 33 Coventry 245
20 Inverness 165 Reading 33 Reading 237

Source: International Passenger Survey, Office for National Statistics. Please note that figures are based on small sample sizes for all cities with the exception of London and should therefore be treated with caution.

Detailed data

This Excel document allows you to see how many visitors from overseas went to different towns and cities in the UK. It also shows a breakdown of visits to each town by major overseas markets. You can view visit data for towns by journey purpose, and quarter. Data is available from 2009-2022 (XLS, 14.6MB). Data for many towns is based on small sample sizes, so using 3 or 4 year averages is highly recommended.

Day trips

International Passenger Survey data for towns and cities typically measures staying visits (where visitors stay overnight). This report (PDF, 1.8MB) looks at where inbound visitors to the UK go on day trips, based on an extra question VisitBritain sponsored on the International Passenger Survey in 2016. Read about the top destinations for day trips and characteristics of day trippers.