Luxury

High spending visitors in the UK

The vast majority of the 39.2 million visits by overseas residents that the UK welcomed during 2017 will have been by those on ‘average’ incomes, but it is interesting to examine which source markets generate the highest spend per visit and the highest spend per night.

It makes sense to look at both these metrics as some markets may display a high spend per visit but this is thanks to an above average length of stay or an atypical journey purpose distribution.

Table 1 below covers the top seven markets in terms of spend per visit during 2017 while Table 2 deals with spend per night high fliers. Both tables feature several Gulf countries, with Saudi Arabia holding first spot in both the country spending the most on average per visit (£5,342) and also per night (£273). This is well above the average for 2017 of £625 per visit and £86 per night. Kuwait holds the second spot in both with an average spend per visit (£3,172) and also per night (£205) 

Bahrain also features in both lists, due to their high standard of living, especially amongst international travellers. Qatar and China both have high average spend per visit, but not per night and this is due to a high average nights per visit in both cases. For China the average number of nights per visit is 18, well above the average of 7, and for Qatar it is 16, which in both cases inflates the overall spend per visit. Iceland features on the average spend per night (£174) but only stay on average 4 nights per visit so average spend per visit (£735) is lower than the markets in Table 1 above, although it is still higher than the 2017 UK average spend per visit of £625. 
 

Only countries with a base size larger than 100 have been included