Great Britain domestic overnight trips: archive

NOTE: The below data for 2022 and 2023 is based on the improved approach identified in our methodological review completed in August 2024. For further information on the methodological review, please see the ‘GBTS Statement on methodological review (April 2024)’ and ‘GBTS overnight trips methodology review 2024, Report (published 5 Sept 2024)’ in the ‘Supporting documents’ section below.

2016 Domestic Overnight Tourism Performance Summary

In 2016, British residents took 99.3 million overnight trips in England, totalling 288 million nights away from home and expenditure of £18.5 billion, with an average trip length of 2.90 nights.

Overall trends

The number of domestic trips was 4% lower than in 2015.

Holiday travel

• 44.7 million holiday trips were taken in England in 2016. The number of holiday trips taken was on par with 2015.
• At 29.3 million, short breaks of 1-3 nights accounted for two-thirds of English holidays by volume. 15.4 million 4+ night holidays were taken.

Business travel

• 14.1 million overnight business trips were taken in England in 2016. The number of business trips was on par with 2015.

Visiting friends and relatives (VFR)

• The number of VFR trips taken declined by 9% in 2016, to 36.9 million.

GBTS 2016 Data

Update on 29 September 2017:In 2016, a new data processing platform was introduced to deliver the GBTS survey, and with this new platform, some changes were made to the way that results were calculated for a small number of respondents. This has resulted in a break in the time series reporting for the project.

To enable users to understand the impact the changes made, we have now re-processed 2015 data using the new 2016 data processing platform. In summary, the effect of these changes at GB level was to increase the estimated number of 2015 trips by 0.6%, the estimated number of bednights by 0.2% and to reduce expenditure by -2.9% compared to the published data.

The 2015-16 Comparison Report included a month by month overview of original and reprocessed data for 2015, with both sets of results compared to 2016 data, for trips, bednights and expenditure. This provides users with information about year on year changes calculated using directly comparable data.

When making trend comparisons between 2015 and 2016, users should refer to the re-processed 2015 data (“Dimensions”). For all other purposes (comparisons between 2015 and earlier years, profiles by trip characteristic etc) the originally published 2015 data should continue to be used.

For more detail about the changes made and further guidance about how to interpret results, the 2015-16 Data Processing Changes Explanation document provides a comprehensive overview of the changes made, the reasons for these, and the way they have impacted results reporting.

Trips to different parts of England in 2016

Each quarter we published GBTS results for the nine regions, covering the volume and value of domestic overnight trips to different parts of England. This included quarterly, year-to-date and past 12-month figures.

Most Visited Towns

The Most Visited Towns data is published using three-year averages, listing the most visited English towns by trip numbers and spend in total for holiday trips, and for business trips. The most recent data is for the three-year period from 2014 and 2016.

Local Authorities and other areas

For geographical areas of England (Local Authorities, Counties, Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEP) areas) data is published using three-year averages only. The most recent data is for the three-year period from 2014 to 2016.

The data is available in Excel as follows:

A combined spreadsheet has been produced for Local Authorities including data from both the GBTS survey (domestic overnight trips) and the GBDVS survey (day visits) to create a combined total of all domestic trips to Local Authorities.

Note: All year on year trends estimates are based on a comparison with a re-processed 2015 data. More detail about this can be found in the below explanation document.

The Methods and Performance Report provides details of methods, samples and a questionnaire:

Official Statistics and Partners

The Great Britain Tourism Survey (GBTS) is a national consumer survey, produced in adherence with the Code of Practice for Official Statistics (2022) – as established by the Office for Statistics Regulation. VisitEngland jointly sponsors the survey with our partners VisitScotland and Visit Wales. The GBDVS also adheres to these principles and is jointly sponsored.

More on tourism in England

The most up-to-date GBTS data is on the latest data page. Further analysis of the GBTS data, including regions, counties, towns and cities is available on our destination-specific research pages.

For more facts and figures about tourism in England, explore our latest intelligence on domestic day visits, accommodation occupancy and visitor attractions, or find information about inbound tourism statistics.

Our domestic sentiment tracker is another tracking survey we run to understand domestic intent for short breaks and holidays within the UK and abroad.