The Office for National Statistics (ONS) who are responsible for the International Passenger Survey (IPS) were not able to interview at Eurotunnel from Jan-Apr 2022 so the data and below and in the monthly summary (PDF, 21.3MB) excludes those travelling via this port.
Read the 2022 inbound forecast and explore the latest annual and quarterly data on the 2021 inbound page.
Visits and spend
| TOTAL | JANUARY 2022 | FEBRUARY 2022 |
MARCH 2022 |
APRIL 2022 | YEAR-TO-DATE (JAN-APR 2022) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Visits | 820,000 | 1,050,000 | 1,850,000 | 2,150,000 | 5,870,000 |
| Spend | £620m | £740m | £1.3bn | £1.7bn | £4.3bn |
Visits: The UK received 5.9 million visits in the first 4 months of 2022. January saw the least amount of visits due to the Omicron variant and consequent travel restrictions to the UK. There was then a significant boost from February to March as travel restrictions loosened and international travel resumed.
Spending: Inbound visitors spent £4.3bn from January to April 2022. Following the same pattern as visits, spend picked up as the months went by.
Visits by journey purpose
| JOURNEY PURPOSE (VISITS) | JANUARY 2022 | FEBRUARY 2022 | MARCH 2022 | APRIL 2022 | YEAR-TO-DATE (JAN-APR 2022) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Holiday | 100,000 | 250,000 | 540,000 | 730,000 | 1,620,000 |
| Business | 160,000 | 240,000 | 400,000 | 370,000 | 1,170,000 |
| VFR | 510,000 | 440,000 | 690,000 | 800,000 | 2,440,000 |
| Miscellaneous | 50,000 | 120,000 | 230,000 | 250,000 | 650,000 |
All journey purposes were still a fraction of normal levels due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Similar to 2021, visits to friends and relatives made up the highest proportion of visits throughout the first four months of 2022, totalling at 2.4m visits.
There were 1.6m holiday visits from Jan-Apr 2022 with only 100,000 falling in January 2022 due to the Omicron variant. Holiday visits picked up pace once restrictions loosened, reaching 730,000 in April 2022.
Business visits totalled 1.2m with the highest number of visits falling in March 2022.
All other visits, under ‘miscellaneous’, which includes study, accounted for 650,000 visits in the first 4 months of 2022.
Visits by global region
| GLOBAL REGION (VISITS) | JANUARY 2022 | FEBRUARY 2022 | MARCH 2022 | APRIL 2022 | YEAR-TO-DATE (JAN-APR 2022) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total Europe | 610,000 | 860,000 | 1,470,000 | 1,690,000 | 4,630,000 |
| EU Total | 540,000 | 790,000 | 1,350,000 | 1,530,000 | 4,210,000 |
| EU 15 | 390,000 | 620,000 | 1,070,000 | 1,240,000 | 3,320,000 |
| Other EU | 160,000 | 180,000 | 280,000 | 290,000 | 910,000 |
| Rest of Europe | 70,000 | 70,000 | 120,000 | 160,000 | 420,000 |
| North America | 70,000 | 90,000 | 200,000 | 240,000 | 600,000 |
| Rest of World | 140,000 | 100,000 | 180,000 | 220,000 | 640,000 |
Europe made up 79% of all inbound visits to the UK in the first 4 months of 2022, equating to 4.6m visits. 91% of these visits were from the EU (4.2m visits) vs 9% from the Rest of Europe (420,000 visits).
There were 600,000 visits from North America from Jan-Apr, with visits more than doubling between February and March as travel restrictions loosened.
The Rest of the World saw just 640,000 visits from Jan-Apr with some of the markets in this region still under lockdown and subject to stricter travel rules.
Download the latest monthly summary for Jan-Apr 2022 (PDF 21.3MB).
